


though I might fall (I'll still catch you)

by Nakimochiku



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29516796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: "Dean... I think you just zoned. I think...you're a sentinel."Dean suddenly awakens as a sentinel and Sam tries to deal with the consequences, in between hunting, the search for John and everything else. But being a sentinel isn't exactly easy, and Sam and Dean are going to find that out the hard way.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	though I might fall (I'll still catch you)

**Author's Note:**

> bless up to the usual suspects, who had to deal with me talking about this nonstop. please for the love of god pay this fic some attention, i worked so hard for like, two straight months on this.

Sam doesn't know something is wrong until Dean nearly drifts into oncoming traffic. His eyes are wide open, pupils blown, like he's staring out at the edges of the universe. 

“Dean!” Sam barks, jerking the wheel to the right, before they can collide with a pickup. But Dean doesn't snap out of it. Dean is light years away, foot sinking on the gas pedal, hands loose on the wheel. He calls his name again and again, but Dean is lost to him, so Sam tries to focus on the road. It’s difficult, he can’t stop glancing at Dean's lax face, panic worming in his belly. He twists so both his hands direct the wheel now, and he's never been so grateful for Nebraska's nothingness, giving them long stretches of empty highways. 

Sam wants to shut his eyes, give himself a moment to think that he doesn't have. Dean won’t wake up. He barely even seems like he’s breathing. A stroke, maybe? A dissociative episode? He seems intent, for lack of a better word, eyes fixed on something only he can see, clear and almost hyper focused on that point at the end of the universe. Sam swallows hard. 

Hyper focused. Like a sentinel’s zone. 

Sam sucks in a sharp breath and tries to remember anything he knows about sentinels, anything that isn't overly romanticized crap about their one true guide. One hand slides from the wheel over Dean’s knuckles, up his arm to the back of Dean's neck, trying to ground Dean through his other senses like he’s heard about. “Dean,” he calls again, gentler. 

He doesn't know what he's doing. The doubt is so loud and abrupt in his mind, but he just— “Come back. Dean, come back.” He's thinking of the cliche movie guides, talking their sentinels through their first dramatic zone. 

This is not like the movies. This is gut wrenching. But it's all Sam has to work with. 

When Dean finally wakes up, they've been driving for half an hour, just straight down the highway. They even missed their intended exit. He blinks, his pupils shrink to pinpricks. Sam's voice is hoarse from just gently saying Dean’s name. “Sammy?” He asks, groggy and lost. 

“Dean, thank fuck,” Sam sighs. He doesn't take his hand off the back of Dean’s neck. Dean doesn't shrug it off either. He blinks at the wheel like he's trying to clear bleary eyes. “Pull over!”

It's a testament to how fucked Dean must feel, because he doesn't argue. 

The impala rumbles beneath them, the road is still wide open before them. Dean scrubs his hands down over his face and rubs his eyes. 

“Dean,” Sam tries cautiously. Dean grunts at him. “I think… I think you just zoned.” Dean comes to stillness one muscle at a time. His fingers, his shoulders, the breath in his chest. He doesn’t look up. Blood rushes in Sam’s ears, adrenaline leaves him cold and hot at once. 

“I think you’re a sentinel.”

*

Dean paces the length of the motel room. He chugs a bottle of water. He splashes water on his face in the bathroom sink. He paces some more, water dripping from his chin, his lashes, the tip of his nose. “No.” He says, at last. “Just no.”

Sam doesn't say anything at all. He scrolls through preliminary information on sentinels, guides, focussing practices on his phone, because the only way to battle through a problem is to know absolutely everything about it. He will wait until Dean is asleep to get into his real research. 

“I mean… fucking why, right?” Dean waves his hand as though making an appeal. “I haven't exactly been triggered lately. We haven't been on a hunt in like, three days!”

“Dean, we live in a constant state of trauma.” Sam says drily, leaning back against the lumpy motel pillow. “Honestly I'm surprised you didn't come online like, a million years ago. God knows you had plenty of opportunities.”

Dean scowls at him. “You're not helping Sammy.”

“Help you try to bury yourself in a pit of denial?” Sam returns, eyebrow kicked up. “Yeah, count me the fuck out.”

“It was a one time thing,” Dean decides as though Sam hadn't spoken at all. “I was asleep at the wheel or something. But it wasn't a zone. And it won't happen again.” It's warm out, but he still picks up his jacket on the way to the door. “I'm going for a walk!” He barks, slamming the door behind him. 

Sam wonders if Dean ever gets tired of his habitual famous last words, and opens a new article on his phone, settling in for a long night of research. _Supporting a Sentinel: A Guide for Newly Paired Guides_. 

*

Sam expects to awaken any moment. Being Dean’s guide seems cosmic somehow, like there's no other way this could work out. He expects to wake up and suddenly be able to feel Dean's feelings, to feel his heart beating in time with his own, to resonate with him. He expects to take a deep breath one evening, turn to his left in the impala and just feel. 

He’s been doing a lot of reading when Dean isn't looking, consuming medical studies and psychological reports and peer reviews. He’s been reading blogs and forums and novels. He's seen the moment a guide awakens described by tween fanfiction authors and medical professionals alike and he expects to wake and feel it. Any day now. Any second. 

It takes a week to come to terms with the fact that he might not be Dean's guide. He tries to accept it with casual aplomb. Heat still rises in his throat.

It takes another week to figure he might not be a guide at all. That realization leaves his mouth dry and sour. No matter how he swallows, the taste remains. 

And yet, somewhere in Miami, Sam slips away from Dean in the beach front motel, and takes a taxi to the nearest Sentinel-Guide Research Centre for a Guide Latency Test. After all the research he’s done on the topic, the test seems laughably easy. 

The 3% Guide Latency results are less laughable. The sour taste swells up in the back of his throat, and he can't swallow it. Not with beer, not with whiskey, not with Dean tossing him the keys and grumbling, “you drive,” as he settles in to sleep off his hangover. 

Sam hits the books again from a different angle. He gets particularly fixated on a blog from a single mother whose daughter awoke as a sentinel at seven. She writes lengthy posts about how to limit negative reactions to overstimulation. How to talk her daughter through a zone when she isn't even a guide. How she tries to mitigate her exhaustion. Sam makes notes in a little book he bought at the dollar store, and feels like he's in school again. 

Exactly thirteen days since Dean first zoned, he wakes up to find Dean curled into a tight ball, hands clapped hard over his ears and faced tucking into his knees, rocking back and forth. This, he understands. He doesn’t need to be a guide for this.

“Dean.” He whispers, clambering onto the bed beside him. Dean flinches, tendons in his fingers straining as he presses harder against his head, eyes squeezed shut. Sam lets his fingers slide up under the sleeve of Dean's t-shirt, feels the heat of his skin and the tightly wound muscles of his shoulder. Dean doesn't seem to notice it at all. He holds him more firmly, fits his left hand around the bent nape of Dean’s neck, pressing in with his thumbs. He wants to say his name, to murmur it comfortingly, call him back. He satisfies himself with breathing quietly, willing Dean to feel him there. 

It takes an hour and a half of waiting in silence before Dean moves, untangling himself from his twisted position, blinking dazedly. 

Sam keeps his hand on his shoulder, firm, palm sweating a little. He should get Dean a glass of water, he thinks, get him settled to sleep. But he can’t move just yet. Not while Dean’s still letting his hand rest there. He's unsure if he was actually of any help at all. Maybe he doesn’t need to be a guide, Sam thinks, but fuck, it’d be nice if he were. 

*

Sam startles when a can of soda lands in his lap, papers flying as he flails. His head whips over to Dean, who looks at him pointedly, snapping the tab of his own soda can one handed. “You get any sleep last night?” he asks roughly, taking a sip, eyebrow lifted expectantly.

“Apparently.” Sam mutters, setting the soda on the nightstand and gathering his scattered research.

Dean watches him critically for a long moment. “You can’t keep doing this, Sammy.” He says as gently as he can manage. “First the nightmares, and the mood swings, and now the research bingeing? Something’s gotta give.”

“Yeah?” Sam challenges bitterly, glaring at Dean and shoving his notes into his notebook. They crumple like so much garbage. His chest aches just looking at them. Dean’s gaze is so condescendingly patient and understanding, Sam’s blood boils. “Who says that’s gotta be me?”

Dean sighs, sitting back on the rickety motel table. Sam vindictively hopes it snaps beneath his weight. “I get that you gotta deal with things in your own nerdy way. Just sleep more. Eat a little. Your books aren’t exactly running off.”

Sam makes a pitched sound of barely leashed fury. “Where the fuck do you get off—?” But Dean cuts him off with a look, leaning over to cup his face. His palm is cool and a little damp from the soda can, his ring a distinct band interrupting his skin. He pins Sam there with just his eyes. Sam’s certain he looks feverish and manic. He feels feverish and manic.

“Sam, I’m serious. You’re losing it.'' His hand drops to the curve of Sam’s shoulder. He drinks a little more soda. This conversation could be as simple as extolling the superiority of gummy worms over gummy bears for all the emotion Dean puts into his voice. The words chop something down in him as swift as a machete.

“You don’t think I have the right?” Sam sniffles pathetically. He doesn’t look up, takes a moment to compose himself as best he can. He swallows down a bubble, but he doesn’t know if it would have come out as a sob or a scream. “You don’t think I have the right to lose it a little bit?”

“You do,” Dean answers, still so condescendingly agreeable. “Everything you been through…” he sighs. “I know you’re… trying to feel better after Jess, and we’ve been grasping at straws with the search for dad, but this?” he looks pointedly down at the notes in Sam’s lap. “I can’t let you keep doing this. To… I dunno, distract yourself or—.”

“Is that what you think this is about?” Sam glares up at him. 

Dean lifts a brow. Slowly sips his soda. “Isn’t it?” He doesn’t move his hand, and it should make Sam feel better, but bile rolls up bitter in the back of his throat.

“Fuck you, Dean.” Sam says, so tired and embittered. He wants to collapse back into the bed and pull the covers over his head, or else, just toss Dean right out of the room. “I’m not distracting myself. I’m still pissed about Jess. I’m pissed about Dad. And I'm pissed about you. And you can’t just. Buy me treats and pat my head and act like it’s gonna go away! I’m not a kid anymore, Dean!” 

He brushes his hand off, tosses his notes to the bed to head to the bathroom, to escape all Dean’s bullshit and every other fucked up thing that’s happened under the spray of the shower. He stares at his reflection in the mirror, studies the drawn expression and hollow eyes and dark rings. All of this seems justified. He holds onto that above all else.

*

The days pass with a stunning regularity given the shift. But Dean ignores the sage advice Sam has gleaned from the internet, and lives as fast and as hard as he always has, as though nothing is different. Nothing is wrong. So that’s how we’re playing it, Sam wants to grouse, shoving his notebook and toothbrush in his duffle, stomping out after Dean to the car. 

Dean found his pit of denial without Sam's help after all. 

*****

They hunt a witch cursing young mothers in Salt Lake City. 

Dean zones watching a train pass, eyes fixed on the shiny metal reflecting the sunlight, pupils blown so wide they swallow up the green, long after Sam can’t even see the train anymore. 

Sam, palm sitting warm around Dean's nape, thumb trailing into the soft bristles of hair there, stroking the skin behind his ear, tries to talk Dean back to him the way he’s read about. 

When Dean comes out of it, he smiles tightly, tugging the string of his amulet, eyes strained, and carries on driving like nothing happened at all. 

Sam leans back in his seat, fingers still warm. “Not gonna say anything?” He presses, eyes glued to Dean’s profile. 

“About what?” He asks glibly. 

“Fine,'' Sam replies tartly. “Lemme know when you're done playing games.”

That night he reads a paper from a Boston University professor on common responses to a variety of visual stimuli in sentinels. Flashing lights like strobes, foggy weather, long repetitive movements should be avoided until the sentinel has better grasp on their senses. Sam wonders how that train looked to Dean, the pattern of it flashing almost endlessly before them. 

*

They hunt a shapeshifter killing playboy bachelors in the Hamptons. 

Dean zones listening to an ambulance siren blare down the street, hands clamped over his ears. 

Sam reaches through the tangle of his arms to hold Dean's face, like Dean used to hold him when he was checking him over for damage. He rests their foreheads together, breathes slowly. He’s unsure what to do when Dean is overwhelmed by sounds. Does talking help him, or just add to the cacophony? It occurs to him to ask, but Dean’s so bent on pretending nothing’s wrong, he doesn't know if he would get an accurate answer. If he were a guide, Dean’s guide, he would know. Sam swallows up his resentment, holds Dean still and tries to make himself a quiet place for Dean to crawl into. All the research mentions repetitive stimuli. Sam settles in with his fingers smoothing across the sharp line of Dean’s cheek bones, over and over until his thumb muscles cramp. 

He knows Dean’s back when he falls asleep right there, face resting in Sam's palms, snuffling against his wrist. He has that luxury and Sam's pretty sure he did it on purpose. Sam stays still, thumb lightly tracing the exaggerated fan of Dean’s lashes, and wonders what the hell he's going to do.

Later, when he’s folded Dean into his bed and set up on a rickety wooden chair in the corner, laptop balanced on his lap, he reads a British dissertation on newly awakened sentinels. Initial zones, unattended by a guide, can last hours. They wake on their own, extremely disoriented. Sometimes, in conflated cases of sentinels with PTSD, like newly awakened soldiers or veterans, zones can last for days, reinforced by triggers or trauma. Dean’s zones have never lasted that long. When he wakes, he's usually aware of where he is, even if he's tired. Sam notes it down as one more thing to research. 

*****

They hunt a black dog in Vermont. 

The forest grows thick around them, it’s cool beneath the shade of the branches. Sam keeps his eyes on the shadows. The black dog’s managed to evade them so far, leaping out now and again to ambush them. Sam’s ankle screams where the thing clawed him, and the fine cut of Dean's cheek is scraped where he fell against a tree trying to avoid its claws. 

Dean crouches down low and closes his eyes. He idly toys with the string of his amulet, turning it around his neck. “What’re you doing?” Sam demands, scanning the trees frantically. 

“Shh!” Dean hisses back, tilting his head to the side as though listening. They wait two breaths like that and then—

Sam hadn't even heard the black dog coming, but he does hear the resounding rapport of Dean's gun. The bullet catches the black dog as it lunges through the underbrush, right through the heart. Sam gasps in awe, elation, fear. “How the fuck’d you do that!”

Dean stands, lowers his gun, shrugs. He smirks at Sam over his shoulder, the glint of his eye and the sharp line of his teeth barely visible in the half light. “I listened for it.”

“You used your powers?”

“They aren't powers, Sammy. They’re my freaking senses. And since I can't exactly turn them off, yes, I used them.” Dean’s mouth sets in a hard line, his expression reads end of discussion as though he barked it out loud. 

Sam sucks in a sharp breath through his nose, smells the loam of the forest floor and the stink of blood and gunpowder, wonders briefly what Dean smells. “I'm not mad you used your senses, Dean,” Sam tries, eyebrows raised. Dean snorts, rolls his eyes. “I'm mad that you won't even try to learn how to control them first!” Dean snorts again, like he's the one being ridiculous. Sam could throttle him. “What the fuck, Dean?! There are full classes on this shit! And you just wanna run in half cocked? Don't tell me not to be mad!”

“Thought you said you weren’t mad?” Dean doesn’t sound half as cheeky as he should.

“I’m not, but I—!”

“Whatever, Sammy,” Dean dismisses. He rifles through their duffle and grabs lighter fluid and matches, dousing the black dog corpse with it. The match snaps, flames roar up, bathing the whole forest scene in orange. “Untwist your panties and let's get out of here.”

*

Dean’s been in the bathroom for ten minutes. Sam’s already settled the bill and is finishing the dregs of his burnt coffee, but Dean doesn't reappear, even when the waitress returns to start wiping down the table with Sam still sitting there, reaching over him obnoxiously, round breasts almost pressed into his face, smelling at once of an overly sweet bath and body works body spray and fryer grease. 

“Excuse me,” Sam says with a tight smile, sliding out of the booth around her, ignoring her little pout. The washroom is just beside the kitchen. Sam spares it a glance as he pushes open the door. Dean stands at the last sink in the row, hands cupped beneath the water. It sluices over the edges of his fingers, there's still graveyard dirt beneath his nails. “Dean,” Sam calls, but Dean doesn't move. His chest barely rises and falls, breathing so slow it's like he’s asleep. “Fuck,” Sam whispers, he lets the door fall shut behind him and hurries over. The water is ice cold over Dean's hands when Sam grips his wrists to pull him away. His skin is pale and frozen. Sam cups both Dean's hands between his palms to warm them, turns Dean around and leans him against the counter. “Dean,” he murmurs, studying his distant eyes, his mouth parted to breathe through shallowly. The sink gushes on, white noise to become something else to focus on. He wonders what caught Dean. The sight of the water? The sound of it? Dean’s never been sensitive to touch before, but perhaps it was the feel of the water on his hands?

Sam’s head falls forward to rest on their joined hands. His shoulders are tight, he feels like he's trying to haul Dean up a cliff. Everything is a threat. Every situation is a minefield. Everyday sights and sounds are somehow dangerous, and Sam feels like he's always on the lookout, always on guard, like his senses are just as heightened as Dean’s, watching him for every slight reaction. 

Shakily, he draws up enough energy to start talking Dean through it, reminding him to focus on his voice, keeping up a steady stream of words, gushing like the faucet. Sam waits another ten minutes, but Dean doesn't respond. Reluctantly, Sam turns off the sink and herds Dean out of the washroom. He gets him into the passenger side of the impala, leans his forehead against the steering wheel for a long time just breathing before he starts the car. 

Dean wakes half an hour later, creaks his fingers one by one, rolls his shoulders, studies his surroundings and visibly relaxes to find himself in his Baby. “Let's switch soon.” He says, but he's already yawning, eyelashes fluttering shut, lids heavy. Sam doesn't even bother responding. 

Later, in a motel some eight hundred miles away, Sam learns there's a difference between a zone, and just heightened senses. He researches all the symptoms he's observed, cataloging Dean’s responses like a scientist with a lab rat. He adds another sentinel’s blog to the eight others on his home screen that he finds useful, follows her journey since she awkwaned through to her sentinel classes. She compares her senses to the volume on a stereo. Like knobs are turned on their senses. She’d called it having her senses dialled up. With practice and the help of a guide, dialling up the senses can be controlled and specified, used to benefit the sentinel, giving them the added information they are looking for. Without controls, she writes, it's like having all the knobs turned at once, like the volume on a stereo being cranked way up, to the point of pain, and no way to turn it down. 

Sam makes his notes, watches Dean cup his palms beneath the faucet and splash his face, and wonders if his spine will feel this tight forever. 

*

Three AM slinks like an animal around the bedside and peeks in through the window. Sam rubs his eyes wearily, and glances over at the other bed. Like he can feel eyes on him, Dean flips onto his belly and hugs at his pillow. Sam sighs through his mouth, closes his laptop, and lays back against the flimsy motel headboard. Sleep evades him. He wants to close his eyes, sink into a single moment of peace. A million things scream around his head. 

With another weary sigh, he shoves all his research onto the other half of the bed and tries to make himself comfortable, beating his flattened pillow into shape. 

He longs, suddenly, for the easy days of his childhood. When he was eight, Dean knew everything. Dean knew which colour of lady bugs were good luck, and he could guess whodunit before the big reveal in every episode of _Murder She Wrote_. He was Batman. Now, though… now—

Sam sucks in a sharper shuddering breath. This fear has been waiting in the wings for him, waiting for him to let his guard down. It buzzes at the back of his skull like beetles with so many questions. What do we do? How can he help? Will Dean ever get ahead of this? Will this destroy him? Will they ever find Dad? Will his visions get worse? Will any of this ever, ever, ever be over?

His shoulders shake with it. He’s so tired. He's so tired, and all he wants to do is sleep. Fucking Dean snuffles at his pillow, none the wiser, while Sam is a step away from losing his mind, or running screaming into the night. He wants to bare his lungs and howl because Dean, fucking Dean, can sleep while this problem sits like a lump in the valley between their beds, or hovers awkwardly in the back seat of the car, but never dwindles. Fucking Dean can sleep while Sam pulls at his hair trying to fix this. At least this. This one fucking thing that has nothing to do with psychics or monsters, that exists firmly in the real world—

Sam’s breath shakes as he tries to breathe, squeezes his eyes shut and pushes firmly at the skittering beetles, locks them back into a sarcophagus at the back of his mind to be unearthed or lost to the sands of time. 

He’s not asleep when Dean rolls out of bed for the washroom. The tap runs, and Sam can see the shape of him in the dark, standing at the sink. He doesn't shift, or say anything. He closes his eyes. After a moment the sink shuts off, the bathroom door creaks half shut. Dean pauses at the bedside, quiet as a spectre. He hovers there, alert and watchful and familiar. “Go to sleep, Sammy,” he orders gently, pressing one hand on his arm through the sheets and squeezing once before letting go. 

Sam closes his eyes and does. 

*

If someone asked, Sam could detail the intricacies of Dean’s behaviour like a zoologist observes lions. Here, the lifestyle of the Common American Hunter. There, the diet, the mating habits, the migratory patterns, the habitat.

It seems weird that his knowledge, gleaned from a lifetime of observation, with only a brief interruption, should be relevant now. It seems odd to estimate Dean’s caloric intake, his average hours of sleep, and try to link that information to being a sentinel. Dean hasn’t let the revelation change him, and Sam still can’t decide if that’s healthy or not. 

His notes look like a mad scientist’s scribbles, carefully coded in jargon so that even if Dean did peek, it’d be hard work to decipher it. He details dates and times of zones, how long they lasted, what triggered them. So far, Dean’s been sensitive to sight, sound, possibly touch. Sentinels with more than two heightened senses are uncommon, though heightened visual and auditory senses are most typical. Has Dean experienced other heightened senses and just hasn’t said anything? Would Sam have noticed if he had? He stares at graphs and charts and tries to make guesses: are they just waiting for something else to rear up and surprise them and add to the hundreds of possible triggers?

Can’t be, he tries to rationalize. The percentage of sentinels with more than three heightened senses drops so drastically, Dean can’t possibly have more than that.

Sam watches Dean hustle pool, the way his eyes narrow and focus as he lines up his shot, the steady lines of his fingers on the pool cue. A quick jerk of his elbow, the resounding clack of the balls meeting, Dean’s whoop as one falls into the pocket. He grins over at his opponent, too cocky by far, and leans over to line up another, a crouching lion on the prowl.

Dean, Sam thinks with an amused shake of his head, has never done anything by half measures.

If this isn’t already a huge fucking mess, it will be.

*

Silence reigns the motel room, thick and tangible, like a blanket of snow. Dean’s been laying in the dark with his hands over his ears for almost ten hours. Sam dozes on and off, coaxes Dean into drinking some water. But even the sound of his own swallowing is too loud in his ears. 

The sensitivity started around the tail end of their hunt. He’d turned his celebratory mixtape way down, until it sounded like a whisper through the speakers to Sam, almost ghostly. A half an hour into the drive, his eyes grew tight around the corners, mouth curled into a barely repressed wince. Barely fifteen minutes later, Dean whispered, “Let's stop for the night, Sammy.”

Sam could have said anything. That they’d barely been on the road. That the sun had barely set. He could push or fight or nag. Instead he’d nodded, “Next place is in two miles.”

It only got worse through the night, leaving Dean tense and curled up. He doesn't say anything at all, but Sam’s seen this already, prepared for its eventuality. As soon as they get inside, Sam digs through a little plastic sandwich baggie he labeled auditory sensitivity. Inside he finds sentinel approved earplugs, advil, sleeping pills. 

“Dean,” he whispers, trying to barely breathe the words out. Dean mutely shakes his head. Sam pulls one hand away from his ear to place the ear plugs and pain killers into his palm. Dean smiles tightly at him, dry swallows the sleeping pills, stuffs the ear plugs in. The fine lines around his mouth and eyes ease in immediate relief. Sam smiles just as tightly, squeezes Dean’s shoulder once comfortingly, and settles in for a long night.

Auditory sensitivity has been described like the world's worst migraine, all sound stabbing through the eardrums and straight to the brain. Someone else's breathing becomes a hurricane. A refrigerator’s humming becomes a jack hammer. The turning of a page becomes the slicing blades of a wind turbine.

Sam sits in the corner of the room now, holding as still as he can. No matter what he’s read, he can’t seem to find an answer to this. Dean’s zones have become almost manageable, infrequent. Exhausting when they occur, but short lived. Having his sense dialled up is becoming more common, and yet Sam can’t figure out a way to control that. He can only manage the painful symptoms and pray for them to go away, letting Dean ride it out on his own. He’s gathered other plastic sandwich baggies for Dean’s senses so far, special eye drops and sunglasses for visual sensitivity, a tube of numbing gel for touch sensitivity. 

Eventually the glare of his laptop screen stings his eyes. Sam shuts it, leans his head back against the wall, tries not to sigh too audibly. They’re pulling into hour fifteen. Dean hasn’t stirred, but he’s too tense to be sleeping. Sam wishes they could talk. He wishes he could say, Remember when we were young? Sam got the flu often then, he always came home from middle school with a bug. Back then, it was Dean who pet his sweaty hair, who made him cayenne chicken noodle soup, who wrapped him in blankets and let him watch Transformers, who carefully measured out spoons of cough syrup, whose palms, already calloused at fourteen, were cool and soothing against this forehead and neck.

This must be karma, Sam thinks. A chance to give back all those sleepless nights of misery, a chance to be the same comfort, a chance to be for Dean what Dean has always been for him. The feelings are nebulous, lack parameters and definitions. But they rise up in his throat when at last Dean shifts and growls out, “I’m good now Sammy. Get some sleep.”

Sam pats Dean's shoulder again on the way to his bed. Dean’s hand tiredly finds his wrist, squeezes once before falling away. Sam flops onto his bed, face first, clothes and all. He’s out before his head hits the pillow.

*

“We should take a break,'' Sam suggests over breakfast, voice as neutral as he can make it. They are somewhere in New Jersey, fresh from a hunt and another long string of zones. There's still a cobweb caught in Dean’s hair, a smudge of dust on his face. Dean pauses, coffee cup half way to his mouth. The sun does its level best to shine through the grimey diner windows, so the writing on the glass “all day breakfast!” Slants in shadows across deans face, framing his eyes like a film noir. They narrow at Sam suspiciously. 

“A break?” Dean repeats incredulously, voice tripping up. He puts the coffee cup down a little too hard. “Mr gung ho let's find Dad and gank monsters wants to take a break? Is it the end of the world already?” He barks a mean laugh. 

“Dean.” Sam snaps, fingers strained on his knife and fork, patience frayed. “Look. I'm just saying. Clearly working cases isn't work—!”

“I can still do my job!” Dean snarls, voice thick. The waitress at the counter glances up with a frown, and abashed, Dean struggles to lower his voice. “I'm not gonna let this… this shit mess with me, mess with our job, mess with who I am.”

Sam wants to throw his hands up in the air in exasperation, or else shout until he's red in the face. The family of three two booths down from them, the group of five college girls road tripping on school break, force his temper down. “It's not—!” he takes a breath and tries again. “Nobody says you can't do your job, dean. But what's wrong with taking a fucking second to figure yourself out first?”

Dean tosses his napkin into his plate, sitting tall, hands folded. He's as stubborn as an emperor. “Why are you talking like that? Think I can’t handle a little shouting match?” his eyes narrow, a predator waiting for an opening. “You mad? Get mad.”

”What the fuck’s wrong with you, Dean?” Sam demands. He tries to swallow it back, but Dean’s already pushed his buttons and he can’t now. “What the fuck? If we stopped—!”

“We aren’t stopping!” Dean snaps. “We have shit to do! And we’ve been doing fine!”

“By what fucking definition?” Sam explodes. “How is any of this fine?”

But Dean doesn’t try to answer him. His expression closes, solidifies to marble. Sam knows the answer to his question without Dean ever saying anything at all. Sam folds, shoulders slumping. He wants to take Dean to an alley and beat some sense into him. Dean nods once, like iron, absolute. “Let's get the bill and get back to what we do best.”

*

Sam’s back in the motel room, showered, with breakfast, before Dean even stirs. He thinks of waking him, but lets Dean hug his pillow for a while longer, scrolling through his emails and mysterious deaths in online newspapers, jotting details down on the motel notepad. Every so often, he looks over when Dean shifts onto his side, lets his arm fall past the flimsy motel sheet to dangle over the side of the bed, kicks the sheet off entirely. He makes little noises of discomfort in his sleep when he moves. Eventually, Sam figures he's been merciful enough. He starts to make more noise, turns on the radio to top 40 hits. He microwaves Dean’s coffee and lets it beep when it's finished. 

Dean’s cranky when he wakes, ribs bruised and lip split. Sam hands him the large coffee and a boston creme donut. Mississippi heat already has him glimmering with sweat, despite his shirtlessness and the open window. Sam lets Dean nurse his coffee, his pain meds, and leisurely says after most of the coffee is gone, “Got a new case on the west coast.”

Dean perks. “Yeah? Where? What?”

Sam nods. “Washington. Men missing from day trips to the lake. Three so far in the past month.” 

Dean downs the rest of his coffee in one long swallow, tipping his head back to catch every last drop. The heat of the coffee in the equally hot morning air makes his cheeks flush. “Well what are we waiting for. Day’s a-wasting!”

He takes a big bite of his donut, chewing obnoxiously. Chocolate dots the tip of his nose. There's a smear of cream filling at the corner of his mouth, incongruent with the redness of his split lip. He swipes his tongue across both. Dean makes it two more bites before Sam figures out something is wrong. All the colour drains from Dean's face; he stops chewing, the fingers holding the last gooey bite of donut fall to his thigh. His mouth twists as he swallows thickly. Oh no, Sam thinks almost comically, when Dean gags. 

“Dean—!” Sam starts, but Dean darts off the bed and into the tiny motel bathroom. The cracked tiles must be hard on his knees as he dives towards the toilet bowl and retches miserably. His back heaves violently, groaning as he spits. Sam wrinkles his nose. “I’m gonna get you something okay.”

He comes back with pepto bismol, ginger ale and crackers twenty minutes later. Dean’s still hung over the toilet, gagging periodically. Sam stands in the doorway, and thinks Dean probably won't appreciate having his back rubbed. “Can I do anything? I brought meds—“

“Can’t,” Dean groans. He gags quietly. “Can't even think of swallowing right now.”

“Come on. At least a little bit of water,” Sam coaxes, coming into the bathroom just far enough to touch Dean's elbow. His skin is clammy despite the humidity. Weakly, Dean takes the water bottle from Sam's hands, sips delicately at it. He looks green, drawn and miserable. “Better?” Dean shakes his head. “Okay. Take your time. Lemme know if you need something.”

Sam wanders back into the room proper, closes the bathroom door on the image of Dean, already throwing the water back up. He fires up his laptop, googling anything he can about sentinels and nausea. The tingle of anxiety is uncomfortably familiar. It's late afternoon before Dean moves around in the bathroom, turning on the shower. 

He still looks pale when he comes out, but better, bright eyed. Sam darts in to use the bathroom behind him before he can change his mind about how he's feeling. Sam’s still drying his hands on an over washed hand towel when he comes out, to find Dean unhappily shoving discarded clothes into his duffle, carefully folding Dad’s journal into a shirt, like it's a museum artifact. 

“So we thinking wendigo?” Dean flicks his eyes at him. “Weird, that far west, maybe it’s—,”

“Dean?” Dean's shoulders hunch against his voice like it's too loud. He keeps packing, rolling a pair of socks and tossing them in the duffle’s side pocket. “What was that?” Sam presses, when no answers are forthcoming. “You eat something bad last night?”

Dean shrugs, but when he glances at Sam from the corner of his eye, he must read something in the furrow of Sam's brow and the hard set of his mouth. “It wasn't a zone exactly.” He starts haltingly. Sam blinks at him. “It was like I could taste every — everything. Every grain of sugar. Every — All at once. All together. It was... Freaking disgusting.”

“It's called being dialed up,” Sam informs, tucking the pepto bismol into their first aid kit, already planning his next run to the drug store for another sensitivity baggy, mentally making new notes. “I read about it.'' His laptop is next, slipped into its case. Dean snorts and doesn’t ask when exactly Sam read anything. “That must be what it's like to really taste something.” He studies Dean's back, the sharp shape of his shoulder blades through his clean black shirt, the wet dark hairs clinging to the back of his neck. “Are you sure we should head out today? We could—,”

“Get in the car Sam.” Dean says tightly, hauling his stuffed duffle over his shoulder. 

Sam heaves a sigh, tries to remember the shape of Dean bent over the toilet all morning, sick and clammy. “I mean, it's alright if we wait. See if you get sick again. Maybe try to work through—,”

“Get in the fucking car Sam. We aren't sitting this one out. People are dying.” He slams out of the motel room before Sam can fight him. 

“Fuck you, Dean,” Sam seethes at the empty room, before he hurries after him, slamming the door too. 

*

Washington is one of those hippie states, according to Dean, crowded with immense forests and, peeking out from dark rock faces of mountains, the occasional lake. Sam knows he's just imagining it, but as soon as they cross the state border, he feels like everything takes on a blue green tinge, like light through a forest canopy. It casts the shadows of Dean's face in blue, makes him look sharp and abrupt against a backdrop of forest green, makes the air cool and clean.

They talk about the case whenever they’re both awake between driving shifts, radio turned down low. What do we know? Not much. Are there any patterns or priors? We gotta wait and see. They talk around the thing, their limited facts, over and over. 

Another man disappears in the time it took them to get there. Sam’s been keeping a track of the case on his phone, studying family pictures of the victims. The Daniels are a happy family of four, smiling big, all American with blond hair and light eyes. Apple pie. Church on Sundays. Baseball tournaments and tax seasons. Suddenly ripped up on a weekend trip to the lake, left with a hole where a brother, a son, used to be. Sam turns the thought around in his head until its misshapen, eyes burning even though he slept a solid eight hours pressed against the passenger’s side window. 

They pull into a motel with a space age neon sign of a rocket ship, a relic of a different time. They get settled, taking turns in the shower, radio playing dimly in the background. They grunt and groan over the aches and pains of a near forty hour long haul drive. 

“Feds?” Dean asks, already pulling on his suit. It fits a little too loose over his shoulders, long in the arms. They’ll never have the means or the need, but Sam allows himself to think about someday, tailored suits, expensive fabrics, something that’ll actually look nice on them, something that falls nicely over wide shoulders, long legs, subtle musculature. He discards the thought and shrugs into his crisp white shirt, looping his tie around his neck. “Who are we gonna talk to first? Victims' families? Cops?”

“Clarissa Daniels. Sister of Stephen Daniels who went missing two days ago.” Sam pulls the address up on his phone. “We’ll go backwards through each victim’s family, and then I got a contact with the rangers to ask around about the lake. 

Dean nods, lips pursed. “I wish we knew what we were walking into. But damn this is weird.”

“Tell me about it,” Sam sighs, holding open the motel door so they can both make their way to the car.

*

Clarissa Daniels lives in a quaint bungalow in the rudimentary neighbourhood that passes for a suburb in a small town. She's as blonde as her brother, face blotchy from tears. 

“You know I was supposed to go with him?” Clarissa whispers to the photograph on the mantel. It’s the same photo Sam found in the article, four picture perfect blonde people grinning from behind the glass. Sam and Dean sit opposite the floral armchair she vacated, Dean shifting uncomfortably beneath her grief. “But I got food poisoning on my date the night before, I told him… just go without me. We have all summer. I’ll go next time.” She covers her mouth, squeezes her eyes shut so two tears drop like diamonds from her lashes. “He was so disappointed.”

“I know this is difficult,” Sam murmurs gently. “Just a few more questions, okay?”

She sucks in a shuddering breath and nods shakily. “Okay. Okay, what else do you need to know?”

They ask their questions. Did your brother know any of the other missing men? Was he acting oddly in the days leading up to the trip? Do you know anything else about the lake, any strange folktales that might surround it? Is it possible he could have drowned? But Clarissa just shakes her head. Just before they leave, she pauses Dean on the doorstep. Sam turns back to watch his face when Clarissa asks, in a weak whisper, “Do you… do you think he’s still alive?”

Dean pauses, tries to smile but it just becomes a tight little grimace. He struggles between a comforting lie and the brutal truth. He peeks at Sam, who knows how to say these things gentler, then turns back to her. “At this point we don’t know. But no bodies have been found yet so. It’s possible.”

Clarissa Daniels gives Dean such a glimmering look of hope, Sam imagines he’ll hate disappointing her. He can see the private promise Dean makes to make his vague assurance a reality.

*

Valentina Sanchez holds her toddler in her lap the entire time they interview her, rocking him back and forth restlessly. Her house is colourful, riddled with children’s toys and finger paintings. The air smells spicy and sweet, and her mother clatters around in the kitchen with her other two children.

“Can you walk us over the day ma’am?” Dean asks in a gruff attempt at manners. “You arrived at the beach and?”

“We had a good time for a couple hours.'' She swallows and rocks a little hard. Her toddler plays with her earring. “Jules was afraid to go in the water with his father, so I had him with me at the blanket. We were making sandwiches together. Andrea brought me this little one, saying he had to go to the bathroom. We’re practicing potty training.” She’s shaking now, anxious, desperate. “I told her to help her brother make sandwiches and wait for their father but...when we got back from the bathroom, he wasn’t there.” She sobs. “I called the lifeguard, but…”

Dean nods in understanding, opens his mouth to ask another question, but nothing comes out. Valentina barely notices. Sam does. He watches Dean wiggle his nose, breathing lightly through his mouth. “Sorry, I need to—,” he makes an aborted excuse and hurries out of the house. Sam wants to run out after him, check that he’s okay, make sure he won’t zone and wander out into the street.

“And your husband was a good swimmer?” Sam presses on, despite his worry.

Valentina shrugs. “Okay I guess. Enough to keep himself afloat.” Her shoulders hunch up around her ears. “But nobody found anything? How could they not find anything?”

“We’re going to do the best we can to find your husband, ma’am.” Sam answers, dutifully grave. Valentina blinks watery brown eyes at him.

“My mom... Says she feels in her soul that he’s already dead but… I need to know. I need—,” she shuts her eyes, presses her face into her son’s downy hair, cries.

“We’ll do our best,” Sam says again, heart tender and breaking.

When he opens the front door, Dean is leaning against the hood of the impala, head bowed, breathing shallowly, twisting his amulet around and around his neck, so the little gold figure flops over his shoulder and glints in the light.

“What was that in there?” Sam demands, standing in front of him, mouth pressed into a thin line of expectation.

Dean shrugs casually, thumbs at the pendant. “The smell was getting to me. Cinnamon and stuff.” 

“Is it still bothering you?” Sam presses. There’s a scent filtration mask in the olfactory sensitivity baggy Sam made only yesterday.

“It’s fine now.” Dean mutters, and tucks his amulet back into his shirt.

Sam frowns at him for a long time, his frustration roiling like lava in his belly, spilling over the lip of a volcano. “I need to know you’re solid on this.”

“We’re solid. We’ve been solid.” Dean’s voice seems thin and tired. Any other day, maybe Sam would pity him, gentle his voice. His patience just snaps like brittle twigs beneath that voice.

“No. We’ve been spiralling. You've been spiralling. I've been putting up with a lot of shit and I'm sick of being the only one trying to manage this. But that? You were distracted in there, Dean. Maybe we shouldn’t even be out here—”

Dean’s head whips up, expression solid and thunderous. “The fuck we shouldn’t! It was just an interview!”

“And when it's not an interview? When it's a witch mid spell? When it's a werewolf with its claws at your throat? What then, Dean? We are in the middle of a case, and your powers—!”

“For fucks sake, Sammy they aren't powers. They’re just—!”

“Until you learn to use them, control them, they’re a fucking danger to you. Do you get that?!”

“Yeah, Sammy. Yeah.” Dean deflates. He rubs a hand over his face. “I just won’t use them.”

Sam takes a breath, tries to push down his righteous fury. If just not using them was all it took, they wouldn’t be in this fucking mess would they? He wants to scream. He wants to grab Dean by both his shoulders and shake. He brushes his hair back from his face and says tightly, “Lemme know if your nose bothers you again, I got something for you.”

*

Simran Gill is not the type of girl to cry. Her eyes are bone dry and cutting when she lets them into the tiny two bedroom apartment she shares with her missing father. The air smells of coffee, the kettle already boiling and the fixings for another cup on the counter. She keeps her jaw firm when she says, “My Dad and I were racing to the floating dock. I thought I won. I was waiting for him on it, I thought he’d be right behind me. It took me a minute to figure I didn't see anyone out that far. I didn’t see him at all.”

“And there’s no chance he could have drowned?” Dean confirms.

She shakes her head sharply. “Dad’s swum competitively all his life.”

“Did you notice anything strange before your father disappeared? The smallest detail could give us a clue to what might have happened to him.” Sam asks, pen poised over his notebook.

Simran frowns at her knees in thought. “Just before I got to the dock, I remember feeling something rush under my legs. Like a current in the opposite direction. Is that the kind of detail you mean?”

Sam’s still writing, so Dean says, “Yeah. Good. That's the exact kind of detail we mean.” 

She nods, looks to her knees again. When she looks up, she looks like the teenage girl she actually is. “Find my dad please,” she says softly. They share a telling glance, and excuse themselves.

*

The air around the lake is clear, hazed blue like Sam always imagines. Sam waves off the ranger, and turns back to Dean, who gazes out over the blue crystal water, eyes narrowed against the light of the sun sinking behind the trees. “What the fuck?” Dean asks as he turns to Sam.

“I dunno.” Sam offers. “The victims are all different ages, social backgrounds, live in different parts of town. One of them was just on a road trip through the state, he wasn’t even a local.” He shrugs helplessly. Orange gold sunlight glimmers in diamonds across the rippling surface of the lake, utterly innocuous. Something lurks beneath its surface, corrupting the picture. Something that took four people with nary a trace or a clue.

“Fuck, it feels like we don’t know shit.” Dean idly kicks at a rock. “There’s something out there and we don’t even have a fucking guess.” He kicks again, so the rock goes flying into the water. It lands with a plop and a series of languid ripples.

“Let’s go back to the motel. We can hit the archives, dig up the history of the place.” Sam glances suspiciously around at the rocky shore, the shadowed edges of the trees, the floating wooden dock and line of buoys. “I’d rather not go poking around without a single clue, you know?”

“Yeah,” Dean grumbles. “Yeah, you're right.” He frowns one last time at the water.

“Do you think they’re alive?” Sam asks, because one of them needs to.

Dean’s mouth tightens. “If they are… I hope they’re not praying they weren’t.”

*

“So get this.” Sam says, scrolling back to the top of his page. Dean places his finger between the pages of Dad’s journal, leaning back against the headboard to listen. “That lake’s been riddled with disappearances over the last eighty years at least. Large rashes of killings occur pretty infrequently but there are single disappearances sprinkled throughout the year, less of them in winter though. Twenty years ago, about seven men disappeared over the course of three months. And before that, loggers went missing one after the other, about nine altogether, all over the summer months. No bodies were ever recovered.”

“So whatever it is, it needs to eat frequently, but sometimes it binges, maybe to make up for starving in winter when traffic to the lake slows down.” Dean starts flipping through the journal again. They both know it's useless. Dad’s never faced anything like this, especially not in association with a lake. He stands to frown at the family photos he has pinned to the motel mirror; the Daniels smile at him, Carlos Sanchez raises a toast beside his brother at what looks like a family barbeque, Gurdeep Gill, dressed in a smart suit and deep purple turban, has his arm wrapped around Simran. Sam hates this part more than any other. Dean bites his inner cheek, shifting his weight from foot to foot restlessly. Sam can see his mind whirring, patterns building like walls. “And all the disappearances are men? No women at all?”

Sam scrolls through the archives to confirm. “Uh yeah, all of them. Women never go missing even if they’re right beside the victims. Just like Simran Gill told us.”

“So clearly this thing has a taste for men specifically.” He pauses and then smirks at Sam in the interrupted reflection of the mirror. “So I guess you’re safe then huh Sammy?”

“Dude shut up,” Sam throws a balled napkin at him, it bounces harmlessly off his shoulder while he laughs.

There’s a map pinned to the wall, with dots in black permanent marker where each victim was sighted. Two dots are in the water. “All in the lake. Sammy, what if this thing can't leave? It's not just its hunting grounds. It's literally restricted by the lake. That's why there's fewer kills in winter. It can't get where people are! It has to stay in the water.”

Sam hums and scrolls idly through the archives for something to do, opening a new tab on his browser. “We’re looking for water based monsters? How many of those have we ever run into?”

“Maybe loch ness immigrated?” Dean shrugs. Sam levels him with a look. “I dunno man, I'm just tossing ideas out there.” He pauses, looks around at their scattered papers, the rumpled motel sheets and spread of weapons. “I’m gonna go get some snacks. Some beer. You want anything?”

Sam leans back to fish a couple crumpled bills out of his pocket and tosses them at Dean. “Get me a pack of fanta.”

Dean twists his face at him. “You’re an atrocity and I can't believe we’re related.”

“Don’t get distracted out there, we still have so much research to get through before we figure out what this thing is.” Sam calls after him.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Dean retorts drily.

*

When Sam peels his cheek from a thick tome about selkies and squints at the late morning light spilling through the blinds, the first thing he consciously thinks is there better be a coffee waiting for him. He blinks around the room, and grabs at the paper Mcdonalds cup of coffee waiting at his elbow.

Dean lounges on the motel bed with Sam’s laptop open. He gestures at a stack of books waiting at the foot of the bed. “Got a head start on you, Sammy. Here I thought all this research got your engine revving.”

“Shut up, Dean.” Sam growls back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. There's a spot of drool on the page of his book. Dean laughs at him and turns back to the laptop. There are two bags of breakfast waiting on the table, wet spots of grease darkening the paper. “Thanks for breakfast,” He grumbles, pulling out a mcgriddle and a soggy hashbrown. There are still a couple waiting in the bag untouched, one half unwrapped and messily refolded. Sam glances at Dean, who sips at a glass of water and sets it on the nightstand. “You eaten?”

Dean looks up, then away again quickly. “Don’t think I can.” he admits after a moment, glaring furiously at the laptop screen. Sam watches him, eyes still bleary, trying to read what Dean means through the curl of his fingers and the furrow of his brow. He sighs through his nose, “I think it’s like the donut. I’m...dialed up?”

Sam creaks from his seat and heads to his duffle bag, rifles through it until he finds a small baggy labeled gustatory sensitivity. He pulls out a tiny bottle of pills from it and tosses it tiredly at Dean's face. He snatches it out of the air and frowns at it. “Just take one. Give it maybe twenty minutes before you try to eat anything.” Sam slouches back into his chair, feels all his joints crack miserably. 

“What are these?” Dean pops off the child safety lock, squints at the label and swallows the pill with his entire glass of water.

“Taste inhibitors. Side effects are dehydration and reduced saliva production okay? So drink a lot of water.” Sam bites into his mcgriddle, its taste, grease and salt and fat, are almost overwhelming even to him. He’s glad he didn’t wake up to Dean throwing up again, and wonders idly how Dean was able to tell his taste was dialed up. 

“Once you’re done with that, I’ve made a list of some things I think we’re looking at here.” Dean casts a wry glance at Sam’s book and smirks. “And we know it's not a selkie. Those can go on land. Wasting time, Sammy.”

“Well I didn’t know that before I started reading, did I?” Sam grouses, and chugs his lukewarm coffee. Dean’s added another patch on the wall of clues, post it notes written in his messy three AM handwriting. “Ogopogo?” Sam reads groggily.

“Native Canadian lake monster. Apparently it demands sacrifices. It’s in the same-ish area, so I put it up.” Dean shrugs. “It kinda looks like Nessie.”

“Dean, seriously?”

“What? It was a valid possibility. And besides. It’s name is fun.'' There's also The Little Mermaid (Disney, 1986), never trust red heads, written in Dean’s even more tired five am script. Sam doesn’t even dignify that with a response.

Sam sighs and picks up another book. He flips through the table of contents and mentally crosses off anything that he knows can come onto land. Kappas, no. Selkies, apparently not. He pauses on the ashray, flips to the page and idly notes it down. The afternoon wears on, and the list starts to become even more improbable. Sam’s pretty sure Dean is humming Under the Sea to himself, munching on the left over mcgriddles.

“What we need now is to figure out what kind of myth surrounds this particular lake,” Sam says, when Dean frustratedly tosses a crumpled wrapped at their messy wall of all the different loch ness inspired cryptids. “Maybe it is your ogopogo. It could be a regional type of monster.”

“You’re just mad that I've made the best suggestion so far and you’ve come up with jack.”

“You basically said Canadian loch ness!”

“Best suggestion so far.”

Sam huffs, snatches the laptop from Dean and starts a new search on local legends. 

*

The town archive is basically just a room in town hall. There are a few black and white pictures of dour gold rush era settlers, an old musket, city planning maps. The archivist is a skinny guy named Jeremy, who seems to have forgotten he was supposed to grow out of his goth phase when he got a real job in his field. “So...What are you guys looking for exactly?”

“Local myths, legends, tall tales.” Sam answers, kicking Dean in the shin when he gets distracted squinting at an old vaguely pornographic photo. “It’s for our folklore project at school.” There are a few leather bound diaries, a ledger from the local lumber mill. Sam flips through the yellowed papers delicately.

“Well, this isn’t exactly the sort of town with a lot of local history. Settled in the late nineteenth century like a lot of the far west. Nothing interesting ever really happens here.” He shrugs, pulls down another dusty box from an equally dusty shelf and stacks it on the slightly less dusty work table before them.

Dean stiffens beside him, shifts his weight, frowns at Jeremy the goth archivist appraisingly. “What about the lake?” he asks, head tipped curiously. Sam watches his profile, the hard glint of his eyes like he expects to peel secrets from Jeremy’s skin. His expression doesn’t promise violence yet, but it’s a near thing.

“Dean,” Sam says once, warningly. Dean just cuts him a look. It says a million things, trust me Sammy. I’m on to something Sammy. Sam lets his hands fall away from the historical items, and waits Dean out, hand hovering by his elbow in case he needs to draw him back.

Jeremy shrugs again, oblivious to Dean’s change in mood, a prey animal unaware of a predator. “Used mostly for logging back in the day. Popular spot for the locals now. We’re not exactly a big logging community anymore.”

“So you never noticed anything weird about the lake? Like how people tend to go missing in it?”

Jeremy pauses. He glances at Dean, then at Sam. “Answer the question.” Sam urges, decidedly less friendly.

“Well, I mean, yeah, but people drown all the time—,” he stutters. Dean leans forward on the table. He’s a head taller than Jeremy, he looks like he could leap right over the table and wring his neck, as sharp and imposing as a stalking jaguar. 

“And I guess it's common in your small dead end town for drowning victims to never be seen again, huh? What are you hiding?”

Jeremy pauses, swallows, holds up his hands as though Dean has a gun on him. “Look, okay, fine. Fine.” he doesn't say anything else. Sam raises an expectant eyebrow, draws himself to his full height. Jeremy’s eyes flick between them both, to the door, to the tiny window, decides he’d never make it, and surrenders. “You said you’re looking for legends right? Well… I never told anyone this, right. But there’s this story. About a girl in the lake. A beautiful girl. And they say every so often she spirits guys away to be her husband.”

“And you’re hiding this local legend from us why, exactly?” Sam presses.

Jeremy closes his eyes as though struggling with something and mutters, “Because I saw her.”

“When?” they ask in unison. “What did she look like? What happened.” 

“It was a couple years ago. Working down here, I’d always known the story of the lake girl, right, but I never thought much of it, you know? Then one night I was out at the lake partying with my friends. I saw something in the water. I was so freaked out, it was dark. I was the last one in, in the shallows. And I saw this… I guess it was a girl, in the water, and I dunno, she just looked so weird and she came outta freaking no where, so I just ran out. When I turned back, I just saw ripples heading deeper into the lake. Like you know how a shark’s fin makes?” he shivers. “Never thought to connect the disappearances to what I saw that night though. Just knew I never wanted to swim in that lake again.”

Satisfied, Dean leans back, rolling his shoulders, instantly more affable. “Anything else we ought to know?”

Jeremy gives one last helpless shrug. “The story goes she keeps her men to be her husband somewhere under her lake, and they’re never heard from again.”

Dean nods. “Good. And next time someone asks you a question, just answer them.” Sam follows him out of town hall, into the wispy Washington twilight. The sun sinks down over the mountains, casting red and gold light over the street.

“How’d you know he was lying?” Sam asks as he folds himself into the car, flipping open his notebook to jot Jeremy’s local legend and near encounter

Dean shrugs, mouth twisted, as he starts the car. It rumbles comfortingly to life beneath them. He keeps his hands on the wheel for a minute. “It was like… I could hear it, Sammy. You know in the crime shows, with polygraphs and stuff? I could just hear it.”

“What, his heart?”

“Yeah. He said something, and his heartbeat sounded wrong.” When Dean finally has them driving, his mouth pulls into a grin. He doesn't say anything more, and Sam can’t help smiling back.

*

Sam leaves Dean in line at the liquor store to run across the street for the local pharmacy, stocking up on dental floss, gauze pads and neosporin. He pauses in aisle eight, vaguely labeled Sentinel-Guide. There are medications for Guides experiencing phantom pains, a variety of sense stimulators because, on the opposite side of being dialled up is being dialled down. One looks like a rubber ball whose surface features multiple textures, it’s box calls it a SensiTouch Stress Ball, and it is obscenely expensive for something that pretty much just looks like a dog toy. Sam stands there debating it for a long moment, but takes a picture to research later.

It’s chaos when he makes it back into the liquor store, someone is shouting to call 911, a few people gather at the register around a huddled figure. Sam nearly drops his bag of purchases when he recognizes Dean, his heart leaping into his throat. There’s a woman holding Dean’s hand, two bottles of pinot grigio forgotten at her side. Her mouth is pressed to his ear, whispering something. Her dark brunette hair falls into romantic curls, piled against Dean’s nose. Sam wants to pull her away, pull her off, check his brother over for himself, but a bystander pulls him by the elbow and says, “She’s got it. She’s a guide. I think he’s a sentinel? Looks like he zoned, but she’s got him.”

The crowd disperses after a few more minutes. Sam can’t move. The hand at his elbow disappears, but Sam can only watch this woman claw Dean back to himself, useless, ineffectual. She pulls back eventually, shaking her hair back from her face. She’s plain looking, makeup worn down at the end of her work day, faded brown lipstick smudged on Dean’s jaw. She turns to Sam, who hovers over them both. “Is he okay?” Sam whispers. He clears his throat, tries again. “Has it passed?”

“Are you his...” she pauses, studying him. Sam's throat burns as he guesses what she was going to say. “No wait. Okay, I managed to get him through the worst of it, but you might want to get him one of those sentinel identification medical bracelets? At first everyone thought he was having a stroke or something. I thought the store manager was gonna pass out.” she chuckles a little.

Sam struggles to dredge up a smile for her. “Yeah. Yeah I'll get him one. Thanks, uh… for helping him.”

“No problem. Look out for him okay?” Her smile makes her less plain. It’s warm and caring. Sam swallows the burn in his throat and nods. “And you too okay?” She gathers her pinot grigio, straightens her floral sundress, and walks out of the store.

“Sammy?” Dean asks from his place on the floor. He gets to his feet as shakily as a foal, Sam catches him under the arm before he can fall again. “That was-

“Yeah. You zoned. A guide helped you. She left as soon as she figured I had you.” Dean rubs at his eyes, blinks around at the orange liquor store lights. His pupils are totally contracted, he’s shaking a little. “Are you okay? After—?”

“Never had a guide help me before.” Dean says obviously, words almost slurred, even though Sam knows it already. He herds Dean along, fishes the keys out of his pocket and gets him settled in the passenger's seat. “It was weird like… I could hear her voice in my head? It was like she just went through and calmed everything down.” He hunches his shoulders up to his ears. “Weird. Wasn’t like how it is in the movies you know?”

“I’m sure it’ll feel different when your guide is the one helping you.” Sam says, so quietly he doesn’t think Dean hears him. Dean just hums vaguely, closing his eyes. Sam’s chest is tight, emotions a black bundled knot.

Sam can almost see her, a brunette, probably, with a wit like a whip, with a tongue like knives, with a take no shit attitude. Pretty enough to settle down with, with just enough of a sense of adventure to want to climb into the impala and just drive. She’d be gentle, sometimes though, stillness and calm in a world of too much sensation.

Or maybe, his guide would be a fun guy, all tattoos and motorcycles and hard drinking. The kind of guy that knows how to have a good time, knows how to laugh, knows how to work hard and play harder. He’d be big enough to hold his own in a fight, even with Dean himself, with a kind heart that can roll with Dean's punches and put his foot down on Dean's bullshit. 

Somewhere, Dean’s guide is smoothing on her lipstick, or lacing up his boots. Somewhere, Dean’s guide is laughing, adventurous and feisty and headstrong and affable. A little bit dangerous, a little bit devious, just right to take Dean on a never ending ride, better than this one fuelled by grief and revenge and hate and bloodshed. 

He pulls into the motel and helps Dean to his bed mechanically. He puts on a microwave dinner and sets the time, cracks open a water bottle for Dean on autopilot. Dean doesn’t fall asleep as usual. He props his head on his arm and says, “It was my first time really even noticing I was meeting a guide, you know? But it was like… we could feel each other. She could feel something was wrong.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure she was way more help than I usually am.” Sam says, too quick, too sharp, too hot. He bites his tongue but the black thing in his chest just swells when Dean blinks at him incomprehensibly. “Bet you wish I was at least a guide, so you didn’t have to struggle so much.” he’s breathing too hard, heart beating too fast. He wants to claw the words back into his mouth.

“Sammy, what—?”

“You know what Dean. That's it. I’ve tried playing it your way. Well guess what? I’m done.” Sam tosses down the water bottle, ignores the slosh of it over his boots, seeping into the ugly star patterned carpet. All the words are burbling up in his mouth like lava, frothing like acid, and he can’t keep them behind his teeth. “Find someone else then, since it’s so much better with a guide.”

Dean blinks at him like he's been slapped. 

“I’m tired! I’m tired, Dean!” Sam roars. The bitterness is out now, his chest is bursting with it, his head is pounding with it. “I'm tired of fighting to take care of you, and I'm tired of you not taking care of yourself!” he sucks in a deep breath. “I’m doing the best I can okay? I’ve—!”

“Sammy,” Dean’s voice is warm and soft. The same voice that read comic books to lull him to sleep, the voice that means safety and care. Sam wants to keep fighting. He wants Dean to rise up stubborn and proud like he always does and argue. But Dean’s voice tells him everything he needs to know. Sam collapses to the bed by Dean’s crossed ankles like his strings have been cut. The black thing in his chest is diminished now, leaving him hollow. “It wasn’t better with her. It was just weird. Different.” He tips his foot to press to the small of Sam’s back, a gruff kind of comfort. “It... I dunno if I could do that again with just anyone anyway, Sam. It’s like. It's like going on a job with another hunter, trusting them to have your back, trusting them not to let you get gutted. I don’t trust anybody but you to have my back like that, Sammy.”

Sam nods. The hollow feeling doesn’t go away. It yawns open, teeth glistening, ready to snap closed the next time Sam reaches unwarily inside.

*

It's half past three. Sam can hear a few hookers giggling in the parking lot as they pass around a smoke and idly wonders how a town so small can have such a high ratio of hookers. One more link, he thinks tiredly, blinking slowly and pressing another hyperlink in his rambling search for “water + killing + girl + men + myth +monster” and several other key words that he thinks stopped making sense a few hours ago. Dean helpfully pointed out, expression grim, that it was Friday. Plenty of families would be heading to the lake for the weekend, meaning more victims for their mysterious lake girl. The pressure feels like a knife at the base of his neck.

Beside him, Dean is sharpening all their knives, shoulders tense. His focus is burnt out, his zone earlier didn’t help, but he’s too restless and edgy with the case to sleep when they still don’t have any answers. His shoulders are tight, mouth pursed with focus, fingers sure over the stone, and the grate of it over metal is soothing, distractingly so. Sam could sleep next to that noise, the danger and promise of it a comfort to him the way nursery rhymes and soft blankets are to others.

He skims the article, blinking slowly. It’s studded all over with pre-raphaelite paintings of naked curvy girls dappling in ponds with over flowing urns. Dean finishes a machete, tests its sharpness against his thumb, resheathes it and moves on to a wickedly curved scimitar. A painting catches Sam's attention enough to actually start reading. He sits up straight, scrolls back to the top of the page, rereading.

“Here! Naiads. A Greek creature that inhabits freshwater like lakes, rivers and wells, they are said to take the form of beautiful girls and lure men into the lakes to marry them.”

“Good so how do we kill it?”

“Gimme a sec,” Sam mutters. He scrolls, while Dean's leg jiggles impatiently. “Okay, as always the myths are varied. We got making her fall in love with you and then breaking her heart.”

“So we can end up as her next take out dish? No thanks.”

“Draining her waters, or corrupting them somehow.”

Dean makes an irritated noise. “Can’t exactly drain it, and people still use that lake.”

“Or a dagger.”

“Coulda opened with that, Sammy.” Dean snorts. He brushes around on his bed until he finds his favourite hunting knife, gleaming and lethal with its freshly sharpened edge. “It say where?”

“Safe bet’s the heart. But Dean. These are classical Greek monsters. I think we should go for bronze daggers. Bronze age, you know?”

Dean grunts in agreement, flips away a couple more knives, landing on two bronze daggers. “Anything more on these things?”

Sam shrugs, “Well, they’re supposed to be friendly in all the stories. Just like that guy in the archives said, they kidnap men to marry them. Sometimes their waters have healing powers or other magical properties.” He closes his laptop with a long drawn out sigh, and gets up to head to the bathroom for a shower before bed. Dean sorts out the knives, and pulls out the bronze daggers to inspect again now that he knows they’re the weapon of choice.

When Sam gets out of the shower, the knives are neatly replaced, and Dean’s under the covers with the TV on low, a senseless soap opera featuring two attractive people making out in a closet.

“We heading to the lake tomorrow then?” Sam towels his hair, flops onto his bed. There's a book digging into his shoulder blade and he doesn't have the energy to move it.

“Guess so. I’ll call the ranger bright and early?” he groans at the thought. “Who’s ever heard of a freshwater mermaid anyway?” Dean grumbles, flipping through channels idly. A Spanish telenovella briefly catches his eye before he flips again. 

“They’re called naiads, dumbass. And they’re dangerous.” Sam grumbles back. The day weighs on him, feels like weeks, or years, or centuries. He feels like his whole body melts into the bed, aches like some ancient thing, his shoulders cave, he feels like a pile of moss. His eyes flutter open and shut.

“Everything we hunt’s dangerous. Dumbass.” Dean snarks. He flops back onto his pillow, punches it into shape. Sam studies the shape of him through his eyelashes. He falls asleep like drifting into water and slowly letting himself sink. The black knot in his chest gusts out with his next exhale. But he expects to find it again tomorrow, or whenever he next finds a chance to breathe.

*

“Got your gun?” Dean confirms, checking his own and tucking it into his belt. Sam slams the car door behind himself and squints over the glint of early morning sunshine to the green and gray lake waters. “Ariel killing knife?”

Sam snorts, “Fuck Dean, cool it with the Disney.” Dean just laughs brightly at him, pats the roof of the car twice to let him know it's time to go. Sam adjusts his gun, checks his bronze knife, and makes sure his jacket covers both, before waving to Ranger Manson Stenwick as he climbs out of his truck.

“Don’t rightly know what you boys are looking for,” Stenwick says, adjusting his hat against the sun. “There’s a couple hiking paths around the lake, I printed off a map for you.” he hands them both folded papers. Sam smiles, nods, tucks it into his pocket. “You boys need anything, I’m at the welcome centre.” he tips his hat like an old time cowboy. Dean smiles, charmed. He gets back into his truck, they wave him off merrily.

“Yippee. Hiking.”

Dean’s lack of enthusiasm is unfortunately warranted. They circle the lake twice, peering at the shore line and kicking up rocks uselessly until they end up right back where they started, sweaty and aching and no closer to finding their naiad. They stop back at the car, spread their maps out on it’s roof, and guzzle lukewarm water from a cooler in the trunk. “We’re going about this all wrong.” Sam says, frowning at the paper, his light marks made in pencil where they already dug around and found nothing. “We’re missing something.”

Dean drums his fingers on the roof of the car. “Yeah,” he frowns, and chews his inner cheek. “Where would this thing hide to eat and sleep? It can’t leave the lake. We know that. All these mountain paths are out…” he trails off, chews his cheek again. He gives up with a toss of his hands. “At this point I’m willing to jump into the lake and hope this girl’s got good taste and bites.” Sam throws his empty water bottle at him.

“There’s something to the myths. There’s got to be.” He pulls out his phone for a quick fact check. “Okay, this one says, like in the story of Hylas and the naiads, men are so enthralled with the naiad’s beauty, they never want to leave. Sometimes, men lost to the naiad awake near the naiads lake and return home with stories of being turned to stone while in the naiads underwater lair.”

“Sammy, turned to stone. What does that sound like to you?”

“It must be some kind of paralytic agent or venom. She keeps them alive and poisoned, and it must wear off!””

“Okay. If, every so often, some poor schmuck manages to get away, which is where our stories come from—“

“Then the naiad has to be keeping her victims somewhere above ground, with easy access to the water.”

A new plan of action firmly in place, they hurriedly fold their maps and dart into the welcome centre. Inside the rustic log cabin, which shares the ubiquitous smell of nature museums everywhere, Ranger Stenwick flirts with Sherry- Anne the receptionist. “Boys!” He welcomes in clear surprise, and straightens up hurriedly. “Found something?”

“Not yet sir, but we’re on to something,” Sam spreads their crumpled maps out on the receptionist’s counter, and draws a circle in the north eastern most point of the lake and park. “Ranger, what's the area around the lake like? Geologically I mean.”

Ranger Stenwick strokes his impressive blonde mustache thoughtfully. “Well the lake is fed by an underground spring, so out this way,” he jabs his finger on a spot just a little west of the penciled circle. “There’re some natural rock formations and caves. Nothing big enough to make a tourist trap of or anything, so locals keep it to themselves to explore on their own sometimes.” Sam looks up just as Dean does. They don’t need to say anything at all, they’re already thinking the same thing. That’s where they’ve got to go.

Dean looks up at the ranger and receptionist and gives them his most slick and charming smile. “You guys got a boat we can borrow by any chance?”

*

Sherry-Anne lends them a paddle boat. Dean laughs himself to tears watching Sam try to fold all his limbs into it, the bark of his voice echoing over the water and the mountains. The dots of freckles sprinkled over the bridge of his nose gives way to the red of a sunburn, and soon he’ll be peeling, and the one laughing will dramatically reverse. Sam just grumbles and snaps, “Just help me load our shit, okay—!”

“We put any more shit in this thing and we’ll capsize,” Dean says, still laughing, even as he places a bag in the back of the paddle boat and helps Sam push it out into the water. Dean looks equally as comical folding himself into the paddle boat, their knees bump as they row. “Watch where you’re poking those things Sammy,” Dean says, still far too amused. He watches Sam a moment and snorts. “You’re gonna hit yourself in the face with your knees, and I’m probably gonna fall out of this damn toy laughing.”

“You’re not careful, I'll push you out first.” Sam snarls, but his ire just makes Dean laugh.

“Bet you don’t remember this,” Dean starts after a moment of quiet. The water is green, the air is hazy blue, the afternoon sunlight bounces off the water in pieces like a shattered mirror, so Dean’s face is highlighted in rippling light. It’s deceptively peaceful for a hunt, and if there weren’t a monster out there, the barrel of a gun sticky with sweat at the small of his back, if he weren’t aching with a lack of sleep that seems seeped into his very bones, maybe this would be the kind of normal Sam used to long for, two brothers on a weekend trip to the lake, razzing each other into playing with paddle boats, out to pick up girls and drink too much and get into trouble. “We used to go on one of these things all the time as kids. At those kiddie parks with the man made ponds? We were somewhere in New York state, Dad was hunting something that ran off like, two states over so he was chasing it. Think I was like, nine or ten?”

“I don’t remember.” Sam agrees. “Where’d you get the cash?”

Dean laughs, eyes sparking with mischief. “Cash? We’d sneak in after hours and I'd pick the padlock and we’d take it out at night. Figured there was no danger, those ponds were practically puddles, barely enough room for the ducks. But I wanted to ride one of the swan shaped ones, you know like in the movies? Wherever the fuck we were, they didn’t have those, but once I put the idea in your head, you were obsessed. Could barely get you out of the damn things.” He’s smiling fondly now. They’re almost a quarter way around the lake, peering at the rock faces for any breaks or overhangs.

“I don’t remember.” Sam says again, softer, and wishes that he did, the way he wishes he remembers most of Dean’s stories about him. He frowns at the water. A frog swims underneath the boat. Insects skim the water on spindly legs. They should be focussing on the hunt, he thinks, not fondly reminiscing and enjoying the scenery. The sun will be setting in a few hours, and if this thing comes for them in the dark they’re screwed. But this is the easiest he’s felt all year. He basks. He can’t help it. It says something about the Greek tragedy that is their lives.

The sun is sinking below the mountains, bathing the lake gold and red. They’ve circled the lake in their paddleboat. A few families have stopped in for a late afternoon swim. Sam and Dean paddle back and forth in open water, waiting for something to swim towards the shrieking children, the obnoxious teenagers, the fretting parents. But nothing disturbs the families’ peace. “It just took somebody the other day,” Dean suggests with a shrug. “Maybe it’s still satisfied?” He doesn't look like he believes it, so Sam doesn’t respond. The evening draws long shadows over the water. The shore is awash in the orange dancing light of a bonfire, turning the shapes of college kids into silhouettes. “One last lap before we call it a night?” Dean suggests, already steering their boat back towards the far end of the lake, already black with the coming night. He’s wheezing from so much cardio, Sam’s legs are tight and sore from paddling.

At the half way point, Sam sucks in a breath, he’s wheezing almost as badly as Dean. “Man, we’re tired.” he says. “If we have a run in with it like this, I dunno if we can—.”

“Sam…” Dean hushes. He stops paddling, head tipped, eyes scanning the black surface of the lake. They bob along in the water, Sam hears it lap gently at the plastic sides of their paddle boat. Dean’s head keeps swerving, tipping this way and that, like he expects to catch sounds more easily.

“Do you hear something?” Sam whispers, scanning the water more seriously too. He can’t see anything in the coming dark, and certainly can’t hear anything, but he hasn’t got Dean’s senses.

“It sounds like… Shouting.” he turns in slow circles, trying to discern the sound only he can hear. He holds the knife firmly, ready to slice anything that approaches. It should look ridiculous, folded up as he is in a plastic paddle boat. “It’s bouncing around like it’s echoing, underground or something, and it’s making it hard to pinpoint.”

Sam grips the sweaty curve of Dean’s bicep, fingers digging in hard. “Don’t get too lost in it,” he warns.

“I won’t,” Dean says lowly, but he doesn’t shake off Sam’s hand. He sinks into it, listening harder. “It’s that way. Maybe if we get closer I’ll be able to get a proper read.”

They paddle in the direction Dean pointed in, wheezing, panting and soreness forgotten. Sam’s knife is out too, held in a fist. He registers the splash to his right before Dean does. It’s gone by the time Sam turns his head. Sam opens his mouth to shout a warning when the rear of the boat is pummeled. The creature lets out an unholy shriek that makes Dean cover his ears. Sam can just barely make out the webbed frill of a lizard and glittering black eyes. He scrambles in the bag for a flashlight.

“That way, Sammy!” Dean shouts before Sam can even turn the light on. “I can see it in the water. Holy fuck it’s fast!” They paddle after it as fast as they can, grunting with exertion. They chase it right into a rock face. “It opens up underneath.” Dean says, leaning over the side of the boat and squinting into the water. “I saw it go in.” He turns to Sam with a devious grin. “Got your water wings? We’re going swimming.”

It is, Sam thinks, dumb as hell to jump into the water with something that probably wants to eat them. He wants to tell Dean to wait, hold on, help him plan. But Dean kicks off his boots, tosses off his shirt and dives right in. “Fuck,” Sam says aloud, hurriedly tossing off his own boots to follow. He barely sees the shadow of Dean’s kicking legs, follows the current of his movement more than the sight of him. His lungs ache. For a moment he wonders if he can even be sure it’s Dean he’s following. He pushes the thought out of his mind, and just when he thinks he’ll have to start for the surface, he follows Dean’s legs through a tunnel, and up into an air pocket.

“What the fuck?” Sam sputters, shaking his hair out of his face and blinking streams of water out of his eyes. The smell hits him first, the smell of blood and rotting flesh, fish and rank fear. They’ve definitely found the monster’s lair, even if there’s currently no monster.

“Dude I don’t know.” Dean gasps back, heaving himself up onto an outcropping of rock. Sam kicks up onto the rock behind him. The rocks are wet, slimy, and he prays it’s algae and the water he splashed up. He knows it’s not.

“Where’d it go? You were following it weren’t you?” Sam shakes his water proof flashlight out of his pocket and flips it on. Dean’s face is ghostly white in the dark. 

“I don’t know, I thought I had it, but it swam away so quickly.”

“You mean kinda like it was luring us here?” Sam suggests tartly. “Geeze, Dean, wonder why? It’s not like we delivered our selves like a pizza right to its doorstep or anything.”

“Shut up, Sammy, we knew we’d have to—!”

“Hello!” a hoarse voice rasps from further into the cave, cutting their argument short. “Hello! Get Help! Help!” the voice cuts off in a fit of coughing. Sam and Dean look at each other before surging forward, blades drawn, Sam’s flashlight cutting a weak beam through the damp dark. There are three men huddled in the corner. Steven Daniels blinks weakly at him, squinting at the flashlight, he's grimey and water stained, dressed only in a pair of swim trunks. “Thank god, tell me you brought help. There’s a fucking—!” he cuts himself like he doesn’t know what else to say, eyes wide and terrified.

“It’s a monster,” Carlos Sanchez whispers, far less alert than Steven. Beside him, Gurdeep Gill sprawls totally unconscious, long salt and pepper hair strewn over the rock. Sam hurries to bend over him. His pulse is thready and fluttering, his breathing rasping and shallow. “It took the other guy that was here. Dragged him off.” He lets a tear spill down his cheek shamelessly. “The crunching noises were awful.”

“It can come up here?” Sam confirms a little desperately. He looks back at Dean, whose jaw sets. He turns back towards the entrance of the cave, knees bent and ready to spring into action, fingers tight on the hilt of his blade, head tipped to the side to listen. “Steven. Carlos. Look at me. The monster can walk on land? It can get out of the water?”

“Yeah,” Steven says when it looks like Carlos has no more energy to answer. “I wasn’t here when it killed the other guy, but it dragged me up here. It—” he swallows. “Who even cares? Just get us out of here!”

“We will, okay. We will. But we need you to stay here for now. We need to kill that thing first.”

“Why?” Steven demands, rage and terror blending, tearing at his throat. “Let’s just—!”

A shadow streaks across the beam of the flashlight and shoves Sam into the rock wall, pain flaring all over and making him gasp, he nearly loses his grip on the knife.

“Sammy!” Dean yells charging the naiad. It dashes out of harm's way and shrieks, a frill around its head flaring in its anger. Through blurry eyes, Sam can just make it out, shiny grey skin like a dolphin, fingers webbed and clawed, eyes black and dewy. It’s only vaguely humanoid, muscular androgenous shape barely implying femininity beyond the fact that it has two arms, and two legs frilled with fins on either side. It shrieks, and it’s mouth is full of needle like teeth. “I thought you said these things are beautiful?!” Dean gasps, guarding Sam with one arm, bronze knife held between them and the threat. If it recognizes the particular trouble the bronze poses, the Naiad doesn’t seem to care. 

“Yeah well we know the stories always get something wrong.” Sam snorts, clearing his head with a shake. Adrenaline is pumping through his veins now, heart revving with it, whisking the pain away to some numb place where he’ll reclaim it later. The naiad brandishes black claws and charges in. Sam ducks the wide sweep of its arm and slashes as he moves behind it, leaving Dean in front of it. The cut the bronze knife leaves doesn't bubble and burn like silver does a shifter, but it still hisses at him. “Come at me!” Sam snarls back. He stumbles away when it slashes at him again, the naiad’s movement halted by Dean, grabbing it from behind, looping arms over its shoulder so it flails helplessly at them both.

“Fuck this thing is strong, stab it Sammy!” Dean yells. The naiad shrieks and kicks and slithers. “I can’t hold it, fuck—!” it rears back and drives him into the rock. Dean’s head bounces once, hold loosening, slumping down against the rock.

“Dean!” Sam shouts. The naiad darts away from them both, heading for the water. Sam dashes after it, tackling it to the stone. Its shrieks bounce and echo so loud Sam thinks his ears will bleed. They grapple and wrestle, grey skin rubbery and cool to the touch. Sam’s lost his knife somewhere in the struggle, and it’s all he can do to keep the naiad in place. Claws rake over his arm, blood spurts between them both.

Suddenly Dean presses in beside him, arm arched back over head. He drives the knife in deep, eyes hard and lips pursed. It screams and thrashes against Sam, who pins it still. He shoves again, a little deeper, hooking the blade in and jerking it home. The blood is black and hot over their hands, but Dean's grip remains firm, steady. One last shove, Sam thinks he feels it’s ribs give way, and the naiad goes still, flared fins falling limp, black eyes as lifeless as coal.

“You good?” Dean turns to him to ask, bumping their shoulders. There's a dark line that might be blood trailing the nape of his neck.

“Yeah.” Sam sighs out, pulling away from the dead naiad. He staggers to his knees, pulling Dean up with him. “You?”

“Been better.” Dean sounds exhausted, like six months of sleepless nights have settled onto his shoulders all at once. “Let's get these guys outta here, huh?”

They stay long enough to help Ranger Stenwick arrange the search and rescue. They stay long enough to watch Simran Gill drape herself, shoulders heaving with her sobs, over her father’s chest, wailing her relief and her anguish, even as she climbs into the ambulance with the gurney. They stay long enough to watch Carlos Sanchez’s three children scream for their father excitedly, while his wife crumples to her knees, hand over her mouth, tears silent on her cheeks. They stay long enough to catch Clarissa Daniels’ eyes over Steven’s shoulder when she hugs him. She mouths thank you.

“All's well that ends well, right Sammy?” Dean smiles. His hair is laying flat, gel washed away, dark where blood still stains the back of his head, shoulders scraped from the rocks. He looks like hell, a war god returning triumphant from the battlefield.

“Whatever you say, Shakespeare.” Sam huffs a laugh, leaning his head back against the car seat, because he feels worse than Dean looks. He wants to say that it was Dean that saved them in there. It was Dean who found the naiad in the first place. He hopes Dean can see that too.

“Let's get back to the room, get you looking all spiffy again.” He reaches over to ruffle Sam’s hair, and Sam, warm in the early dawn sunlight, flushed with victory, tired and bloodied and so damn pleased to have something close to a happy ending to this shitty story, doesn’t try to stop him. He closes his eyes on the feeling, and lets it lull him into a doze, with the opening guitars of Dean celebratory mixtape and the roar of the engine down the dirt road.

*

They make it to a Walmart parking lot just outside Portland. Dean wants to go to Los Angeles, and they stock up for the road trip, fresh socks and more granola bars swinging in bags from their hands. Dean stumbles just as they make it to the car, bag dropping to the pavement and spilling candy bars and gummy worms like innards. Sam opens his mouth to laugh, to call him clumsy. The laughter curls and dies in his chest. Dean gives a short cry and collapses to the pavement entirely.

“Dean!” Sam drops his bag too, thinks he hears the glass jar of strawberry jam smash. He goes to pull Dean up, hands stretched out.

“Don’t touch me!” Dean barks, recoiling from him. He digs his nails into his forearms, his neck, the backs of his hands, leaving angry red welts. He scratches harder, nails coming away bloody.

“Dean stop it!” Sam yells, snatching up Dean's wrists. He cries out like he’s in agony, his skin is burning feverishly. “Dean!”

“Stop touching me!” Dean snarls viciously, retreating futilely against the car. “My skin’s on fucking fire I—!”

Sam swallows, but he doesn’t let Dean go, not when he fights to stand, fights to claw at himself, fights to kick Sam off. Sam pins him to the hood of the car with all his weight. Dean screams at him, voice breaking, chest heaving, wrists straining beneath Sam’s palms. Sam can’t breathe either, he can barely think. Dean’s sense of touch must have dialed up, Sam thinks belatedly. He shouldn’t have grabbed him. He should have gone for the numbing gel in his bag. His hands flex on Dean’s wrist. Dean cries out like Sam is burning him. This must look awful to onlookers, Sam thinks, even more distantly. He shoves his feelings beneath a layer of cotton, sucks in a long breath through his teeth. He and Dean can’t stay like this. Dean’s senses could stay dialed up for hours. Any damage he does to himself in the two minutes it’ll take to get the numbing gel will be well worth it. “Don’t move.” Sam warns. He darts off Dean and into the car, tossing items in his duffle bag out of his way haphazardly until it comes to the tube of Numb8: Sentinel Numbing Gel with Cooling Action!, he tosses the cap to the car floor, peels off the safety seal. 

“Don’t touch me, Sammy,” Dean warns when Sam comes back. Blood oozes from new cuts on his forearms. “Fuck it hurts—!”

“This’ll help, trust me,” Sam coaxes. There are scratches on Dean’s face. Sam starts there, smears the gel from his brow, to the bridge of his nose, the apple of his cheek to his jaw. His throat to his shoulder, down one arm and up the other. Dean shakes with barely suppressed agony, hisses at him if Sam applies pressure or lingers too long. Sam pulls away, Dean’s skin is shiny and tinged blue from the gel, eyelids squeezed shut to ride it out.

The gel starts to work after fifteen minutes. Dean doesn't say anything at all, expression tight, looking old and more haggard. He wants to smooth the lines of tension around his eyes. Sam wonders what his own face looks like, after weeks of trying to hold Dean together. 

“Do you think we should call Dad?” Sam offers, voice barely a whisper. Venom sits in the back of his throat, clicks when he swallows, but he still says, “Maybe he’ll—?”

“Called him already.” Dean whispers back, letting his head fall back against the car, eyes slipping closed, mouth pinched. “That first time in the car. I called him and left a message telling him I might be…” He swallows, turns his head to rest against the cool metal. “He never called back.”

Sam slides from the hood of the car slowly. There are bruises on Dean's wrists where Sam pinned him. Fuck Dad, Sam thinks but doesn’t say, venom hot and bitter. “It's not like Dad’s gonna be a guide anyway,” is what he does say, but he has a churlish tone. I’m here, and I’ve been getting us both through this, Sam thinks, but doesn’t say. “Can you picture Dad being empathetic?” Is what he does say. Dean doesn't laugh. He pushes himself up off the car and crawls over to the passenger side wordlessly. Sam's belly clenches, a roiling mix of anxiety and fury and guilt. 

Sam bends to gather their supplies from the pavement. The wonder bread is squished, smeared with smashed strawberry jam. He brushes gravel from one of Dean’s new henleys. It feels surreal. He dumps everything into the back seat and gets into the car too, pulls the door shut behind him with a squeal. Dean closes his eyes, clenches his jaw, he sits like his skeleton is made of iron. “We don't have time for this,” he says, like he's trying to convince himself. He rubs absently at his wrists, Sam fights to keep his eyes on the rearview window. 

Sam puts the car in reverse, gets them on the highway. They have nowhere to go, they need some place to be, and in between they drive. He longs for the well worn routine of it. He lets the town fall into the rearview mirror before he tries to say anything. He wants Dean to start chatting about LA, about the clubs and the hot girls and the good weed. Dean remains silent and stony. “We can make time for it,” he offers. He glances over when Dean does, their eyes catch, electric, before Sam has to look back at the road. “Cause I don't think we have much other choice.”

Dean slumps down in the seat, temple resting against the window, staring out at the starry glimmer of lamp post and headlights. Sam can only watch him in flicks and glances. He wants to call Dean's name, get him talking again. He hates this hollow look on him, the way he absently rubs his wrist, over and over, like he's numb. He wants to lay his arguments out concisely, MLA format with an annotated bibliography, and talk Dean around. “I hear you, Sammy,” he murmurs as though Sam's already said everything out loud. He slumps even heavier against the door. “I hear you.”

Sam's muscles tremble, from holding the steering wheel too tight, from holding Dean still. Even though he got the results he wanted, this doesn't feel like a fight he's won.

*

“So,” Dean says abruptly with a mouth full of taco. He’s got a pair of douchey sunglasses pushed up into his hair, a smear of guacamole on his chin. He waggles his brows at a pair of girls in bikini tops, who giggle at him, before he looks back at Sam, jostling his legs with his foot beneath the table.

“So.” Sam repeats. He dunks his taco into a plastic container of sour cream and bites into it. Dean could be referring to anything. He waits. His heart wants to burst out of his chest, he wants to leap up before Dean can change his mind. A cool wave is moments away from breaking over him. He waits. The long ride to LA had been silent, punctuated with truck stops and classic rock mixtapes, but they never broached the subject he wanted to cough up on the dashboard. He waits.

“So lay it on me, Sammy, I know you’ve been dying to.”

“To tell you that your socks fucking reek and it’s your turn to do the laundry?” Sam suggests idly, taking another bite of his taco. Finally finally finally—

Dean guffaws, tossing his head back, catching the sun, flashing off his lenses. “You mean to tell me you’ve been tryna bring this shit up for months, and now I actually wanna talk about it, you don’t? You’re such a petty bitch.”

“Learned from the best.” Sam smiles thinly. “Jerk.” Dean tosses a jalapeno at him. 

“Seriously, Sam. I’m listening okay.” He nudges Sam’s boot with his own, and rudely steals a nacho chip from Sam’s plate. “Whatever you wanna say or think you can do about this… sentinel thing. I’m listening.” he rolls his shoulders back, takes a bite of his taco and chews thoughtfully.

“Oh, you're listening?” Sam lifts a brow, biting back a smile. Took you fucking long enough, he wants to say but doesn’t.

“I just gotta learn to use it right?” Dean shrugs, nonchalant and expansive. He picks up another taco, scraping up fallen bits of meat from his paper plate with his fingers and scooping it into his mouth. “No problem. Probably won’t kill me, right?”

Sam idly dunks a nacho chip in his tub of sour cream, swirls it, watches Dean eat from beneath his eyelashes. “Have you been thinking being a sentinel is a terminal illness?”

Dean frowns down at the decimated remains of his food. “Hasn’t exactly been a fucking picnic so far.”

Sam wants to say that’s because Dean’s stubborn, lives to make things difficult. But to be fair, Sam thinks as he finishes his taco, licking beef gravy from his thumb, it wouldn’t have been a picnic anyway. “No, it hasn’t,” Sam agrees. “But we’ll figure it out.”

Dean nods, casually unfolds a paper napkin to scrub at his face. “I'll ask again. Lay it on me. What next? You're the expert.”

“First, we make an appointment with the sentinel-guide research centre, and take it from there.”

“Okay, fire up a map. Where we headed?”

“Dana Wasikowski has the best facilities in the city.” Sam answers promptly, rolling the remains of their lunch. 

“Do you just… keep the names of these places in your head?”

Sam snorts. “You don't know the half of it.”

*

Everything in LA seems like it's made of shiny chrome and glass, ostentatiously lined with palm trees. Sam used to love it, the shininess of the west coast, the promise of prosperity woven into its mythos. The Dana Wasikowski Institute is as shiny as everything else in LA. Sam can feel Dean tensing the moment they walk into the air conditioned lobby. 

Dean fidgets beside him at the receptionist’s desk. There's a huge mural on the wall behind it of a smiling man and woman, presumably a sentinel and guide pair, the centre’s motto “building the future through bridging senses” written in white superimposed on the image. It doesn't speak to them. Not to what they've been through over the past few months. Those smiles belong to some other guide and sentinel, with different lives, but not them. Sam follows his gaze through glass panels to people in yoga pants working out in the next room. In another, smaller room, another group of people sit cross legged, eyes closed, while the instructor paces around them, talking them through a meditation practice, steps measured and slow. Dean’s fingers drum against the receptionist's desk. Sam wants to steady him. Hold him still and remind him there's nothing to worry about. His hand clenches into a fist, and he smiles tightly at the receptionist in the hopes that she hurries it up. 

“Harper will be with you in just a moment.” She says. She gestures with an open palm towards a line of grey sofas. Sam tugs Dean towards them with a quick jerk on his elbow.

“I thought this was a research centre.” Dean whispers heatedly, watching people in lab coats cross to the elevators from various side hallways. He jabs Sam between the ribs. “What’s with the gym class? And the kumbaya circle?”

“It’s probably a type of physical therapy. We’ll find out on the tour.”

“Well I refuse to wear the freaking tights.”

Sam is saved from having to reply by Harper’s arrival. She tosses a long wave of black hair over her shoulder and gives them a painted red smile, hugging a clipboard to her chest. “Sam. Dean. A pleasure. Shall we get the tour started?” Sam smiles at her tightly and goes to stand. He doesn't know if he should be pleased or worried that Dean doesn't immediately start flirting with their tour guide. He settles on worried when he spots the hard sour look twisting Dean’s mouth. 

“Our institute seeks to support all levels of sentinels and guides, from those who have newly awakened, to those who have been using their gifts for decades,” her voice is so smooth and chipper as she power walks to the elevators that she sounds like a documentary. He can feel Dean walking close to his side, practically stepping on his heels. “We’ll be starting on the lower levels and working our way up.” 

Harper shows them a dimmed room full of float tanks, “originally invented for studying sensory deprivation, float tanks are now considered a very restorative therapy for sentinels who often find themselves overwhelmed.” Beside him, Dean snorts and mutters, “you couldn't fucking pay me to get in one of those death traps”. They pass well lit labs where people complete activities designed to help hone their senses. On another floor there are comfy rooms in muted earth tones, “for the variety of cognitive behavioural therapy that some sentinels and guides need to acclimate to their new abilities.”

“Therapy?” Dean interrupts at last. His expression is thunderous. 

Harper blinks at him and smiles charmingly. “Most sentinels awaken after a trauma. Some even get trapped in a feedback loop of sensations, what we colloquially called zones, for days after they first awaken. I imagine it's hard to adjust to such a big lifestyle change when you associate it with a terrible life experience.” Her expression could freeze alcohol. “So yes. We offer therapy.”

Dean studies a room clearly designed for kids and asks, slightly quieter, “Is it mandatory?”

“That depends entirely on your attending case worker.” She defrosts some, scans Dean over like she reads something on him. Sam tenses, like Dean does, and wonders what she sees. A macho guy with an aversion to chick flick moments, hopefully, but not the truth. Sam’s not even sure how to quantify that truth himself. “If they decide you're adjusting, therapy won't be necessary.” She turns on her heel to carry on the tour. Dean chews that over silently, biting his inner cheek. 

“Tell me more about that,” Sam asks, following the click of her stilettos. “The attending case worker.”

“Just like with medical care, every person is different. Our clients are paired with a case worker who creates a routine for them in a variety of categories, and measures their progress. This can be how to help their family understand their new situation, how to use their senses, how to get a job that accommodates them better, or even how to talk to their current employer about what they might need. The case worker provides support.” Sam nods along and feels something tighten in his chest and twist there anxiously. 

The ground level features a gym, through which they can see about twenty people stretched out in bendy yoga poses. Dean shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn't even leer. “What makes the Dana Wasikowski Institute unique is its dedication to building communities.” Harper announces, walking down a long hallway. “We offer group counsel sessions, which provides the opportunity to meet other sentinels and guides who might better understand each other. And after the initial adjustment period, clients can sign up for the compatibility program.” When neither Sam nor Dean gives her a reaction, Harper grins. “It's an additional service that measures compatibility between available sentinels and guides and matches them, giving them the opportunity to form a bond. While we can’t boast that we’ve always matched sentinels with their true guides, the relationships we help establish have been long lasting and satisfying.”

There's a dirty joke in there somewhere Sam’s sure Dean would make. Dean doesn't say anything. Sam’s throat feels too tight. Harper frowns, clearly expecting something else. “Sounds great.” Sam offers. “The rest of the tour?”

She hands them a brochure that talks about prices and plans and shows them out. They lean on the car in the parking lot. The metal is scalding beneath Sam’s bare forearms, but familiar and steady. “Pretty thorough place, right?” Sam broaches, watching the twitch of Dean’s clenched jaw, the grip of his fingers on the roof of the car. “They thought of everything, right?” But Dean doesn't say anything. Sam's stomach sinks, but he still says, “We should give it a shot, don’t you think?”

A long moment passes, and Sam's heart crawls up into his throat. “No.”

A million emotions hurtle through Sam. Some rational part of him tries to use reason, reminds him to speak gently, ask why not and how come. Another part, the part that's been through this shit for months and thought he was finally fucking getting somewhere bellows over the rational voice. “The fuck do you mean, no?!”

Dean rears up like he was expecting the fight. “I mean no, Sam! No!”

“Why?!” Sam demands, slamming his palms down on the roof of the car. The scald and the sting feed his fury. “Give me one good goddamn reason!”

“Just no! End of discussion!”

“Fuck your end of discussion! You said you were gonna follow my lead on this Dean! We agreed—!”

“I never said I'd obey without question. I don't want this, get it? I don't want it!”

“Then give me a fucking reason why!”

“I can’t! I don’t have an answer for you!”

“Fucking tough! We’re not leaving this goddamn parking lot until you fucking explain yourself!”

Dean breathes hard through his noses, shoulders heaving, glaring viciously at Sam, who glares right back. “Case workers? Workshops? Community support? That ain’t us, man.” He growls out bitterly. “This shit doesn’t fucking work for us.”

Sam draws in a breath, counts and lets it go. His fury is a headache building behind his eyes. He wants to let it out, keep screaming, drag Dean back into the shiny, ostentatious building and force him to sign a contract at gunpoint. “Why not, Dean? This place could— It could even help you find a guide—!”

Dean snorts and rolls his eyes. “What planet are you living on, Sam? How the fuck am I supposed to tell some therapist, yeah, I need to get good at this sentinel shit yesterday so I can go back to catching ghosts nationwide?”

“You could lie, Dean, it’s not like you aren't used to that.”

“For what? Some half ass plan that has me floating in tubes and talking about my feelings for—?” He pauses to look at his copy of the brochure, his eyebrows hiked up, “15k a year? With what money, Sam? Under which false id?” He shakes his head firmly, hands up to wave away even the suggestion. “No.”

“Dean—!”

Dean opens the car door and climbs in, turning it on with a roar. Sam stands in the California sun a moment longer before he climbs in too. His headache grows, he wants to keep yelling. He just grabs a water bottle from the cooler in the backseat and gulps it down, fuming. 

“Besides.” Dean says casually, before Sam can warn him he doesn’t want to hear his fucking voice for a while. “It's not like we’re gonna stick around Cali all that long anyway.” He nods like he’s made a decision to himself. Sam stares out the window, muscles tight, and can already guess what it is. 

They’re driving down route 66, intent on putting LA in their rearview mirror, like getting away from the city will put the Dana Wasikowski Institute and all places like it out of Sam’s mind. Sam doesn't bother to inform him that New York, the state Dean’s next chosen as an escape, has the best Sentinel Guide research centre in the country. He asks casually, “What was wrong with the place? It had literally everything.” He can't tell if he's still angling for an answer or a fight. 

Relaxed, Dean shrugs and leans back against the seat. “I dunno man, I thought there’d be hot nurses. Maybe they’d hook me up to a machine and measure my brain waves. That kinda shit.”

“Sounds like you wanted this to be Total Recall.” Sam chuckles. 

“I mean like a little!” Dean throws up his hands. “Not like. Finger painting and weekly pity parties.”

“Dean,” Sam sighs, and wonders how to put this in terms Dean will accept. “For some people, awakening as a sentinel or guide is really stressful, okay. The centre provides support.”

“Sure,” Dean agrees, rolling his eyes dismissively. “But I don't need all that shit. And I don't have time for it.”

Sam bites his lip, worries at it a little, idly notices its chapped from the California heat and pulls at the peeling skin with his teeth. “You said you’d follow my lead.” He sounds whiny and petulant. When Deans eyes flick to him, Sam stares back imploringly. 

Dean sighs through his nose. “When I said you could help me, Sammy, I meant you. Not every shrink and love guru in a five mile radius. Why can’t you just teach me?”

“I'm not a trained—“

“It's gotta be you, Sammy. Only you.” 

That tightness in his chest eases. Sam whispers, “okay.”

*

They stop for a routine salt and burn in a small town in Oklahoma. The Sleep Tite Motel boasts free wi-fi and an indoor pool. Sam opens his laptop, watches the screensaver, rubbing his thumb over the spiral binding of his notebook. He moves to the bed, sinks down into the creak of it, knees almost bumping Dean’s. They are waiting for sundown to dig up the grave of a vicious widower. Sam debates how to start for a few minutes, while Dean goes over his pre-hunt weapons check. Eventually, he just dives in. 

“A lot of the books I read talk about levels.” Dean pauses in cleaning his gun, makes an I’m listening expression, arching one brow at him seriously. Sam presses on and prays Dean just hears him for once. “Like, some sentinels only have one heightened sense. The more senses you have, the higher the level. Sentinels with all senses heightened are called true sentinels.” He flips open his notebook to run his thumb over his notes.

“And I’m that.” Dean says, gruff and blunt. He sets down one gun for another, a fairly old revolver that they don't use for much except target practice. 

Sam swallows. “Uh, yeah. I think your sense of hearing and sight bother you the most because you rely on them the most but. Yeah. You’re a true sentinel.”

Dean’s jaw flexes. He finishes cleaning his gun and sets it aside. “So what's that mean?”

“Well, literature on true sentinels is limited, first of all. They’re pretty rare. So everything I tell you is gonna be me cobbling together so many areas of research. But we can get a handle on this.” Sam leans forward to catch Dean’s down cast eyes. He casts him a reassuring smile. “We can get a handle on this.”

Dean sucks in a steadying breath, lifts his head to meet Sam’s eyes. “Yeah. Okay. What else?”

At this, Sam spreads out a care worn brochure on the bedspread. He can't remember when he got it, at any of the dozen sentinel guide research centres he slipped off to across the country. “There's typically a process. We kinda dove in feet first, but I guess we just have to teach you how to get out of a zone, and how to dial your senses.”

For a moment, Sam thinks Dean’s going to fight him on this. He thinks Dean’s going to call it all off, remind him again that we have more important things to do. But Dean’s mouth firms into a hard determined line, the expression he makes when he has a lot of work to do. “Singing kumbaya with you beats the alternative, right?” He asks, shoulders bunched and tense. 

Sam frowns, “What's the alternative?”

“Letting something gut me while I'm staring at nothing.”

Sam nearly chokes. He knows he's said it before, offered it up like a threat before. It’s still awful to hear it in the low resignation of Dean’s voice. “Yeah,” he forces out. “Yeah it beats the alternative.”

Dean nods like that's all they need to say on the matter. “Let’s go get us some ghost barbeque.”

Like he jinxed it, Dean’s sense of smell dials up in the graveyard. He gags in at the smell of gasoline, pressing the collar of his shirt over his nose and trying to breathe through his mouth. He looks like a gaping fish behind the sweaty cotton, eyes watering. He takes one handed swipes of his crowbar at the Widower’s Ghost and it dissipates like smoke, before Dean is gagging and spluttering. 

The smoke, when Sam finally burns the bones, isn't much better, but now Sam can think enough to drag their supply bag closer, and toss Dean a filtration mask. “This smells like your dirty socks,” Dean grouses, but doesn't take it off. 

“Fuck off. It was still in the package. It's lemon fresh.” Sam flops back against the mound of grave dirt, aching and filthy and fighting back a wave of panic. What if that had been a zone? A creature faster and toothier than a ghost? He closes his eyes against the flames and the star spangled night sky. 

“You're lemon fresh,” Dean grumbles back lamely. 

*

Rain splatters against the windshield, providing a background noise of static, interspersed with the occasional rush of tires on wet road from passing cars. The car is humid, their breath fogging the windows until the car becomes a cave, damp and warm. Sam pauses reading to roll down the window a crack, welcoming the cool splash of summer rain on his arm. Behind him, Dean dozes on the back seat, a long shirt tossed over his chest in the approximation of a blanket, eyes covered in a blindfold. He’d promised his sight would dial down in a few minutes when he pulled off to the shoulder of the road, but that was an hour ago. He lays too still now, like a corpse, so that Sam wants to wave his palm over his face to feel the gust of his breath on his skin.

“It's freaky. I can feel you looking at me.” Dean mumbles. He doesn’t pull off the blindfold. “Stop checking up on me or whatever.”

Sam just turns back to his book. The Sentinel’s Support has a long chapter on how to be present and available to a family member who has awoken as a sentinel. It's from the 80s, but the only thing Sam can entertain himself with, without cell phone service. Sam reads the same sentence over and over, beneath the orange glow of his flashlight. But there's nothing a middle aged psychologist from the 80s can tell him about his brother that he doesn’t already know. He shuts off the flashlight, lets the book slide off his lap and into the footwell. 

Dean breathes softly. In the dark the car becomes a cocoon. Outside there are a million issues, a missing father and a well of grief and a white hot knife of rage waiting to swoop back in on him at any moment. But inside the cocoon, there is the clean sound of rain, the occasional drip of water, the lingering smell of gasoline and gunpowder, cologne and coffee, the softness of their breathing. Inside the cocoon, they are close, and guarded.

He should offer to drive, he thinks, and get them to a real bed. But he lets his eyes land on Dean again, crumpled into the back seat, both arms folded over his chest, one hand clasped around his amulet. He lays down as best he can, listens to the rain and passing cars and his brother’s breathing. They’ll get wherever they’re going soon enough.

*

The thing about jumping head first into a potentially long and grueling process with only limited available resources is that there's no real way to measure incremental progress. Three weeks on the road again between four different hunts nearly exhausts Sam’s notebook, and leaves Dean seething between each failed attempt to learn what it takes others months and teams of specialists to get right. Sam forgets, between his outdated taste in music and an affinity for particularly cheap brands of gummy candies that Dean is a perfectionist. Dean expects of himself the same perfection with which he fires a gun, precise, practiced, easy. He expects to tame this into military alignment, to catch it right through the heart like it’s a beast he only needs to put down once. Watching him try is like waiting for a grenade to go off.

They are headed south again, and Sam doesn’t know which side of the Tennessee border they’ve stopped on. Crickets and frogs sing summer serenades outside the open window, the air is thick and damp, sitting on the skin like something physical. Soothing Zen meditation music sounds tinny through his laptop speakers, while Dean scowls with his eyes shut, mouth tight and brow puckered in ever growing fury. He rolls a stress ball between his palms, but the stillness Sam’s notes say he’s supposed to be finding eludes him.

“Fuck this!” the stress ball goes flying across the room and rolls forlornly into the open bathroom door. Sam tracks it’s movement with his eyes before looking back at Dean, who vibrates from his place on the bed, “The fuck’s this even supposed to be doing?”

“Drawing your focus to a single point to induce a zone. The site I got this from suggested the stress ball so you would have a physical manifestation of the point.” Sam gets up wearily, joints creaking from a long night spent grave digging, and retrieves the ball. “Ready to try again now that you’ve had your tantrum?”

“No. Fuck it. It’s not working!”

“It's not going to work if you get all worked up about it.” Sam sighs. He drops the ball into Dean’s lap anyway and settles across from him again. Dean squeezes it in his fist, a moment away from throwing it again.

“It's not gonna work, period!” Dean snarls back. “I can’t do it!” He’s on a roll now, erupting like a fissure under too much pressure. “It’s my own goddamn body I don’t know why it can’t just do what I want!”

“Dean, you can’t just expect instant results, it takes—!”

“Sam, if you give me that Rome wasn’t built in a day speech one more time you’re gonna be swallowing teeth.” Furious, Dean flops back to the bed, legs dangling over the side. He tosses his arm over his eyes, belly rising and falling quickly with his harsh breathing. Sam wishes he didn’t feel like such a spectator, wishes he could at least understand. All the self help blogs and fanfic and books in the world couldn’t prepare him for the exhaustion, the fury, of watching Dean struggle alone with something bigger than him, something swimming in his own blood. So Sam says nothing at all, while Dean’s breathing slows.

He tries, “It’s alright if—,”

“Shut up, Sammy, I’m serious.”

“No listen.” Sam leans forward on his seat. He wants to go to the bed, peer into Dean’s face and try to read him. “Why are you in such a rush? It’s not going to… shut itself off. You literally have all the time in the world to get this right, or find the thing that works for you. Three weeks, three months, three years even. What difference does it make?”

Dean’s quiet for a long time, going still and almost melting into the bed, lines of tension erased by something Sam can’t see from his vantage point. “We’re going in circles and it’s pointless. We have shit to do, Sam. Or have you forgotten about Dad?”

“What does Dad have to do with it?” Sam asks, voice too low, too venomous. Dad couldn’t be fucked to call them back about this, couldn’t even let them know where he was to put them at ease.

Dean has no answer to that. “I just hate this shit, Sammy.” Dean doesn’t move his arm, like he can’t bear to look at him while he admits it. He sounds exhausted, Sam feels it in his own bones. He reads it now in the loose fall of his knees, his curled hand on the bed spread. His throat works as he swallows thickly and if he were someone else Sam would think he were choking back tears. “I fucking hate this shit,” he repeats, softer now but no less hateful.

He could be referring to a million things, the never ending grind of the hunt and the motel rooms and the blood beneath his fingernails. Sam has no words for that, no self help advice to navigate the rest of the mess that is their lives. He sits beside Dean on the bed and flops back too, lets their knees bump in a quiet show of solidarity. He fucking hates this shit too.

*

Dean’s medical drama is on commercial break when Sam comes out of the bathroom, toweling at his hair. A woman explains the benefits of the SensFirst pill in a husky voice. “For more regulated sense feedback and fewer zones. Side effects may include decreased function of senses, lessened mood, depression and suicide. Ask your Doctor if SensFirst is right for you. Don’t you think it’s time to feel again?” The slogan somehow leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. 

Dean lays on the bed, getting chip crumbs all over the sheets, staring at the screen blankly. “Never realized how many of these there were until it became…” he searches for a word, brow furrowing. “Relevant,” he settles on, and shoves another handful of chips into his mouth. 

Sam swallows, wonders if Dean’s going to ask. Dean doesn't say anything else. The commercial becomes an ad for a new chocolate bar, a preview of the ten o'clock news. But Dean doesn't say anything else. Sam lets his muscles unwind, takes a seat on the other bed and shrugs into a shirt. “Those pills are really for sentinels with no guides that can barely leave the house.” Sam informs as casually as he can. “I read that it's like… living padded by cotton.”

“Sounds fucked.” Dean hums, adjusting his pillow and settling back against it. 

“Some people need that.” Sam whispers. “For some people it's so bad, living with reduced senses is better than the overwhelming feedback of being dialed up all the time.” He watches Dean, chip crumbs around his mouth, his leg hanging over the side of the bed, his gun waiting by his hip within easy reach. For all intents and purposes he looks at ease. 

A moment passes before Dean's eyes move to him, quietly appraising him with one sweep of his gaze. “I don't need that.” He says, gruff and firm, the same way he says “I've got it, Sammy,” or “Go back to sleep, Sammy.” He’s not trying to be comforting. Just matter of fact. “It’s not that bad for me.”

Sam lets out a little breath he didn't know he was holding. He wants to press. You’d tell me if it was, wouldn’t you? He wants to remind Dean of his support. He doesn't say anything at all, words and worries balled in his throat. He's certain he's giving Dean an agonized expression of worry, he waits for Dean to tease, to make light of it, to tell him to stop looking at him like a kicked puppy. 

But when Dean’s eyes move from the screen again and catch his like hooks in lace, he flaps out a hand, lets it land on Sam’s knee and says, “Seriously. It's not that bad for me.” 

“Okay,” Sam agrees, and gets comfortable on his bed, too drained now to look at a new article or blog or even check his emails. He doesn't point out that not that bad doesn't mean good. Dean’s measure of tolerable discomfort has always been skewed. 

*

They keep heading south, the heat goes from sultry to arid to hellish. They bag a pack of chupacabras in a small Texas border town, and plan to head back west through Arizona. The sun is barely up, but it’s so hot Sam feels like a wax candle, drooping and miserable. Something about Texas appeals to Dean, but Sam thinks it's less the terrain and more the romanticised memory of cowboys that keeps him happy on the long stretches of desert road.

“Okay here, I found a sort of… personality quiz.” Sam passes the laptop over to Dean, who sits across from him, licking the remains of wing sauce from his thumb. He regrets it instantly, but Dean’s smearing fingerprints are already all over the keys. That doesn’t stop him from levelling a sour look at Dean. Dean grins at him unrepentantly. 

“Like those ones high school girls do to tell them which boy band guy wants to date them?” Dean scrolls through the page, squinting at the questions.

“I… How do you— sort of, I guess. Just fill it out. And dude. Wipe your fucking hands.”

Dean smirks at him gleefully, and tosses his decimated chicken wing bones back into the take away box. He keeps licking at his fingers as he answers, tapping occasionally. Sam takes a gulp of his beer, watches the condensation gather in rings of the stained table, the beer already tastes lukewarm. Dean’s sticky fingers slide over the neck of the bottle distractedly and he sips at it while he keeps one eye on the screen. “What does this mean?” he spins the laptop around and jabs a finger at the question. Sam wiggles the laptop a little closer to read it, absently wiping at Dean’s finger prints. 

“The one about the totem?” Sam clarifies. Dean nods, takes another swig of beer. He sweats like the bottle, drops sliding from his hairline. The sun is right on them through the motel window, even with the blinds half closed. It's like being baked. Sam pushes sweaty hair out of his face. “A totem can be anything, but usually it’s an item that you use constantly to help you cope with your senses.”

Dean gives a thoughtful hum, spinning the laptop back around. “I guess I have something like that.”

“You do?” Sam blinks in surprise. “I never told you about that.” Mostly because Dean was being so stubborn, he barely had the chance to introduce any coping methods to Dean at all.

Dean just shrugs. “Found it on my own I guess.” 

Sam chews on that while Dean finishes the quiz. Had he ever noticed Dean using a totem? How long had Dean had it? He studies Dean again, the easy shape of his shoulders, the flick of his eyes as he reads. He can’t find an answer just by looking at him. “Here, done. It says… honestly I dunno what the hell this says, just read it.” 

Sam takes the laptop again and skims the analysis. He barks a laugh when he finishes, pushing his hand up through his hair. “I can’t believe I never thought of this before!” He laughs. 

“Losing your marbles there Sammy?” Dean finishes the last of his beer and gets up to fetch another, setting a bottle at Sam’s elbow. “Still with me, Dr Jekyll? What’s cracking you up?”

“You’ve always been a kinesthetic learner. I’ve been going about this the wrong way this whole time.” He covers his mouth to try to keep from laughing anymore, but an almost hysterical giggle escapes whenever he catches a glance at the frankly obvious suggestions the quiz results provided.

Weirded out, Dean lets him have his moment. He sits back down across from him. The sun spills like liquid gold into his lap, glints off the glass of his beer bottle and sluices over his knuckles. He watches Sam through eyes narrowed in the light, while Sam tries to work out which angle would be best to approach from.

“Okay,” Sam says when he gathers himself. He shoves the laptop off to the side with the remains of their lunch, and opens up his notebook, flipping past notes on Dean’s behaviour that seem redundant now. He flips to a fresh page, and grunts his thanks when Dean helpfully passes him a stub of a pencil. He scribbles totem at the top of the page. “Okay. We can work with this. but...You gotta talk to me.”

“Bout what?” Dean rolls his shoulders back, takes a deceptively casual sip of his beer. He kicks his leg out, so his toes knock at Sam’s shins.

“Dean, don’t do this now, dude, I can't help you if I don’t know what's going on.” Sam sighs.

“What more could you possibly need to know?” Dean demands incredulously. “You know everything!”

“I need to understand your… processes.” Sam tries. Dean raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Sentinels have guides for a reason and—!”

“Sammy, You aren't a guide.” He laughs when he says it, like he thinks Sam is being stupid, eyes rolling.

Sam swallows, face hot, muscles tight. “You don't think I know that?”

Dean blinks at him, tries, “Sammy—?”

“No, Dean. You don’t think I fucking know that? What do you think I'm thinking, doing, watching you zone? Don’t you think I fucking know I can’t even help—“

“You do help, Sammy.” Dean looks like he's been gutted, just admitting it. Sam draws up short, but fury still buzzes loudly in his head, ready to fight. “I— I feel you there, even if I can't talk. I hear you. I...” he searches for the words helplessly, and shrugs when he can’t find them. “You do help.”

“So it—?” his heart feels full, a tickle like carbonation in his veins, he's going to burst with it. Sam swallows, takes a different tact. He flips through his note book, gives them both time to adjust to this new concession between them. He’ll process it later, in the sleepless part of the summer night where he can turn it over and over in his mind like a river stone. “Has anything seemed more effective? Something that sticks out to you?”

Dean, unexpectedly, flushes, eyes wide and cheeks pink. He glances away, and looks for a moment like he wants to take it all back. “Your hand always brings me back.” he murmurs, and guzzles more of his beer to evade saying anything else.

Sam nods as clinically as he can and makes another note. The bubbling carbonation doesn’t dissipate. 

*

That the showdown takes place in Tombstone, Arizona would probably make Dean laugh normally. As it stands, Dean stops in the shade of a storefront awning, fingers poised with coins over the parking meter. He’s paused mid long winded rant about Doc Holiday. He tenses, assessing, the way he gets on a hunt, instincts honed and deadly sharp. Sam looks around too, drawing up close to Dean's left side to follow his gaze.

At first nothing seems wrong, just a regular tourist trap teeming with unfortunate cowboy enthusiasts and pseudo history buffs. Sam’s eyes skim over them all, until his gaze snags on a guy who seems unnaturally still, standing across the street. Sam studies him. He’s tall, face shaded by a knock off Stetson, tattoos swirl up his arms to his rolled sleeves. He looks rough enough to be a hunter.

“Someone you know?” Sam broaches.

Dean just lets his parking fare drop to the pavement and moves out into the sunlight and teeming tourist crowds blindly, without even answering. Sam scrapes up the money and follows, surprised to find the modern day cowboy is moving towards Dean as well. 

“You just awaken?” The cowboy asks, voice all honey sweet southern drawl. Dean nods, gazing into the man’s face with open awe, jaw a little slack. The cowboy nods like Dean’s said infinitely more. “It’s gonna feel really weird for a while, pinging off other sentinels. ‘Specially a guy like you.” He takes a moment to look Dean up and down. “Can tell you’re something else.”

“Weird.” Dean repeats breathlessly. 

Sam finally draws level with them. His mouth is dry, watching them study each other like two lone wolves meeting in the wild. “Dean?” he asks, aware his voice is soft and whiny. Like he’s still eight and wants chocolate. Dean's shoulder shifts towards him infinitesimally, but he doesn’t look away.

“This your—no.” the cowboy says with a quick look at Sam. He nods in acknowledgement just the same. But the words burn Sam, tickle in his nose and throat like smoke. He tilts his hat back, reveals gray blue eyes and a beauty mark on his cheek. 

“Does it ever—?” Dean asks, uncharacteristically soft in front of a stranger. Sam wants to clamp a hand over his mouth, usher him away. He just watches him. He’s reminded he doesn’t belong in this conversation. Not really. No matter how much he reads, or tries to help Dean work through this, he will always be on the fringes, not really able to understand. He will always be that aborted question.

“Gets better. Takes time though. And God, so much practice.” He laughs ruefully, dropping his chin to shake his head. When he looks up again, his eyes are warm, encouraging. He could be another hunter, Sam thinks again. Another brother. Those gray blue eyes fall on Sam now, and he jerks his chin a little. “Helps to have people though. Helps to let them in.”

Some irrational part of Sam wants to snap out that Dean lets him in just fine, thank you, and he doesn’t need the reminder. Some part of Sam hates that a stranger can read that on them. Another part, the part that read blog posts about how difficult it was to convey needs to loved ones knows that this guy is probably just speaking from experience. He doesn’t know anything about them, not really.

“See you around, man,” the cowboy says, and reaches out a hand for Dean to shake. Dean does, still in a shivery sort of daze. He turns to Sam, and says, quieter, “Take care of him.” and offers his hand.

No shit, Sam thinks harshly, even though the guy was nothing but friendly. The fuck do you think I’ve been doing all this time? He still shakes, and nods at the guy when he gives one last glance over his shoulder.

*

“What does it feel like?” Sam asks the darkness of the motel room. Dean’s breathing hasn't dropped off yet into the softness of sleep, his predictable snuffles, the way he nuzzles into his pillows. Sam knows he's awake because he can feel the energy thrumming from him, even across the narrow gulf between their beds. He hears him turn, the rustle of bare legs against low thread count sheets. “When you zone?”

Dean is silent for so long Sam doesn't think he’ll answer. He stares at the profile he can see of Dean silhouetted in the neon light shining through the slats in the blinds; the swell of his shoulder, the dip of his waist, the long line of his legs. He's so still he could be dead. His silhouette shifts as he draws in a weary breath. “It's like I can't think of anything else. It takes up all the space in my brain. It's so loud, so much...”

Sam’s read sentinels’ accounts of zoning infinitely more eloquent than that. And yet, he understands just what Dean means. He wonders if it's because he's spent his whole life trying to read paragraphs in the kernels Dean gives him, or if zoning is something that doesn't need eloquence to convey. Sam doesn't say anything else. Dean turns onto his stomach, tucks his arm beneath his pillow. Sam waits until he is asleep, snuffling and nuzzling, before he closes his eyes.

*

Sam’s ever evolving research takes him down a rabbit hole of coping methods and teaching styles, until he somehow stumbles onto a kindergarten teacher’s learning journal, and decides he’s probably overthinking this and he’s about as prepared as he’s ever going to be for his second stab as Dean’s pseudo guide and de facto case worker.

“Okay listen. All the books talk about different learning styles bridging the gap to circumnavigating your psyche.”

Dean’s nose wrinkles. He's in sweat pants rolled to his knees and a ratty tshirt, sitting cross legged on the motel bed. It's the coziest Sam’s ever seen him look. “The fuck does that mean? Translate from geek.”

“I dunno, meditate I guess?” Sam shrugs. “Find your happy place? Uhh? Look deep within for your truth?”

Dean grunts irritably, rolls his eyes, but Sam’s levity leaves him less stubborn, in better humour. “Okay Mr Miyagi, any more fortune cookie advice or you gonna let me just take a whack at it?”

Sam waves his hands, and settles back on the too small motel chair. Dean makes it ten minutes, nine more minutes than he expected, before he peeks open his eyes and says, “yeah this ain’t working. Got anything else?”

Sam pretends to flip through his notebook, like he hadn't already categorized exercises Dean would respond best to. “Focus on each sense one at a time. What do you hear, see? It’s supposed to keep you from being overwhelmed. Especially in new environments.”

Sam sits across from Dean, and does the exercise too. He sees the sharp line of dean’s nose, the shadow of stubble in his chin, his fingers fiddling with the cords of his amulet. He hears the gale of his breath as he approximates meditative breathing. He smells home; drug store cologne, drug store body wash, second hand cigarette smoke, leather, whiskey, gasoline, gunpowder. Sam lingers there at smell for a long time. That smell hasn't changed. He knows it in the dark, knew it even without seeing him for four years. If he were a sentinel, would there be a new depth to it? If he were a guide, could he feel out the edges of his own scent through Dean?

He watches Dean take a deeper, easier breath. Blinking his eyes open with a flutter of lashes. “That wasn't the worst.” Dean says. 

“Okay!” Sam grins, he can’t help it, and for once, Dean beams back. “Now let's try something else.”

*

If Sam thought Dean’s renewed vigor towards mastering his sentinel senses would slow them down, he’d have been mistaken. Between reaching out to every contact Dad’s even mentioned in passing for the eighth time, tracking vague leads about where he was weeks or months ago, and hunting, Sam’s surprised Dean even finds time to sleep. Not that Sam’s doing much of that either. Instead, Dean progresses rapidly. His zones rarely catch him by surprise, though they are still debilitating, and he is able to dial his sense of hearing up. Sam wishes he could say he didn’t know where Dean’s determination was coming from. He wishes he could say some complete stranger didn’t get through to his brother where Sam had been failing. He should be grateful, he reminds himself viciously, flipping through Dad’s journal for a page on warding. He should be pleased Dean got something out of meeting that cowboy sentinel that Sam somehow couldn’t give him. But instead he just wants to scream.

They drive through Colorado on the hunt for a cursed book that renders the readers blind. 

The cursed book leads to a cursed piano in Denver that keeps the player playing until their fingers literally wear down to the bone.

From there, a cursed mirror that drives the viewers insane with gruesome visions takes them to Iowa.

“What’s with all the cursed objects?” Sam wonders, throwing down an obscure Illinois newspaper with another strange obituary between them. Dean rubs his temple and half heartedly takes a bite of his bacon, pulling the newspaper to skim where Sam has highlighted: Mr. Luther Yeon’s estate will be up for auction, he is survived by... 

“I dunno but I’m glad we’re heading back east. We stayed in the desert any longer, I woulda been scrapping Sammy jerky off the front seat.” He smiles too wide, too pleased with himself. Sam’s certain he should be more worried, since Dean’s wearing his special sunglasses and has already put away four cups of coffee and two migraine pills. But Dean promised two hours back that he’s fine, and he certainly tries to will it so, like if he just cracks enough jokes and acts just right, they can both pretend nothing is happening. Sam wants to reach across the diner table, close his fingers around Dean’s wrist to give him something else to focus on, until the pulse beneath the tender skin steadies and the light sensitivity recedes . He doesn’t reach out. Dean hasn’t asked, and is determined not to need him.

“This could be nothing,” Sam offers instead, tapping the newspaper. “We could give it a rest before we head that way. Wait for a more concrete lead.”

“When is it ever nothing?” Dean shakes his head. “I said it before, Sammy: we’re not stopping. Not for anything.”

Sam nods. “You managing it better?” he asks as vaguely as he can.

“It's turning down. Just way slower than I want it to.” He rubs his hand over his forehead like he can soothe away the sharp pulse of the migraine, mouth curled into a frown.

“Gonna let me drive?”

“Will it get you to stop bitching?” but he’s already sliding the keys across the table.

Halfway to Illinois, they run into a haunted teacup of all things that they almost mistake for another cursed object.

“There goes our streak.” Dean says, watching the fire lick at the floral patterned porcelain.

“Don’t be mad, Dorothy sure put up a fight.” Sam gestures to the crescent of bruises from Dean’s temple to his cheek bone. “Dude, you got your ass handed to you by an eighty year old lady.”

“A ghost eighty year old lady on steroids man. Don’t count.” Sam happily mocks Dean all the way back to the car. 

*

The impala's engine ticks as it cools, the fire built on the lakeshore crackles merrily. Sam leans against the car’s frame, watching the flames. The air smells of freshwater, roasting hot dogs, the sticky sweet of the marshmallows Dean stuffs into his cheeks. Sam’s loose and warm with whiskey, the smell of parched grass, the flickering of fireflies. Dean rests equally easily beside him, whiskey bottle between his knees.

“Hey…” Sam broaches, head lolling to his left to study Dean’s profile. He makes a lazy grab at the whiskey. 

“What?” Dean says through another mouthful of marshmallows. 

“When you first found out you were a sentinel. Why were you so…” it takes a moment for the word to come to him. Dean eats another marshmallow and chases it with another sip of whiskey, before pressing the bottle into Sam’s limp hand. “Reluctant, I guess?”

“Man, are you even capable of getting buzzed without asking deep questions?” Dean grumbles. Sam knows the shape of all Dean’s denials and deflections. He doesn’t sound like he won’t answer. Sam counts the marshmallows Dean eats. He eats eight. “This is just getting dealt another shit hand.” He settles on. “You gonna drink or not? Pass the bottle.” Obligingly, Sam takes a swig, soothes the burn with a marshmallow, warm from Dean's lap.

“Why though?” Sam presses, curious. “Sentinels are great cops. Great soldiers. It’d make you a great hunter. Well, an even better hunter.” Later, when Sam is sober, he’s sure he’ll regret the childish dregs that remain of his hero worship, his absolute certainty that Dean is a titan. He looks at Dean now, sleepy and drunk and stuffed with junk food and sees only the same thing he’s always seen: his big brother, larger than life, Atlas, carrying the world and lifting the sky. 

“Those sentinels all got guides.” Dean reminds. His voice is as soft as worn denim. Sam makes an affronted noise in his throat. “Everyone knows a sentinel needs a guide to be that epic.” Sam makes another disagreeing noise. “I’m good, or I will be, but I'll never be perfect. Not without a guide. We never stay any place all that long. Where am I supposed to meet my guide?” the words spill out, tipped whiskey into the grass, and Dean must be more drunk than he looks. “And even if I did meet them, what am I supposed to do? Shove them in the trunk and drive off with them? I can’t drag anybody else into this, you know. I can’t do that.”

“You could—” But Sam isn’t drunk enough to sell Dean the pipe dream of getting out. “They say true pairs are perfect for each other in every way.” Sam eats another marshmallow to take the bitter taste out of his mouth. It's soft on his tongue. “Maybe your guide’s already a hunter.”

“Maybe,” Dean allows. He rescues the hot dogs from the flames, blowing on them and handing one to Sam with a murmured, “Careful, It’s hot.” They eat the hot dogs quietly, watching the half moon on the water, the dancing flames, the blinking fireflies. “For all I know, my true guide is in Taiwan somewhere.”

Sam thinks of telling Dean that everyone worries they’ll never meet their soulmate. But the word is sticky in his mouth, and articulation is a rapidly dwindling ability anyway.

“I’m here.” Sam murmurs. He turns his head against the cool metal of the car, ready to curl and sleep. Dean turns to him, brow raised in amusement. Somewhere, Dean’s guide doesn’t know that Dean likes to burn his marshmallows before he eats them, likes to perform strange campfire food experiments, likes to warm his feet uncomfortably close to the flames and maybe, if Dean is to be believed, will never ever know this. He should feel bad about that, he thinks distantly. He accepts that he doesn’t now, when Dean hands him another marshmallow, but he probably will later. “I’ll be here.”

“Yeah Sammy. I know you will.” Dean reaches out to pat his hair. His fingers are sticky with the decimated remains of marshmallows. “Now go to sleep, you lush.”

*

Sam and Dean roll up to Luther Yeon’s estate sale in the suburbs of Springfeild. The items on sale seem mundane; A few antique chairs, a vase or two. Nothing screams cursed or haunted lethal item. They are unfortunately unable to check which object strangled Luther Yeon in his locked study because Dean’s dollar store EMF readers are on the fritz. “Just a second, Sammy,” he grunts, whacking it against his leg. 

Sam rolls his eyes and carries on, carefully examining an antique name seal posed with an ink stone and a sheaf of rice paper, as though he could tell just by looking if one item is haunted.

“Why do rich people gotta like old stuff so much, huh?” Dean grouses, giving up on his EMF readers, and frowning judgmentally at the collection. “Don’t they know all this shit could probably kill them?”

“Some people actually appreciate culture.” Sam returns drily. He studies Dean as he looks at the delicate lines of a painting. An idea unfurls in his mind like a flower. “Why don’t you try?” he blurts.

“Try what? Getting cultured? Sorry Sammy my Shakespeare days are over.” Dean snorts, shoving his hands in his pockets and wandering the aisle.

Sam shakes his head, the idea rattles around eagerly, trying to get out. “No, try to feel out the object we’re looking for.”

“I’m not an X-Men, Sam, I can’t just magic up--”

“EMF is potentially just another sensation. If you dial up… maybe your sense of touch, you’ll literally be able to feel the haunting.” Dean frowns dubiously at him, but Sam smiles eagerly. “Try it, it could be good practice.”

“Don’t think this is gonna end well.” he mutters. Just the same, he rolls up his sleeve and lets his palm hover over the displays. A couple of people look at him oddly, but Dean just tosses them a sharp look and keeps feeling the energy around each item. By the fifth item, his free left hand finds the amulet, running his thumb over it. He wanders half the room. His mouth goes tight, lines creasing the skin around his eyes. Sam thinks of telling him to stop, it’s clearly not working, and is close to overwhelming him. Dean draws up short in front of a display, snatching his hand away and cradling it to his chest.

He steps up to Dean, reaches out, but Dean’s shoulders jerk, a breath punched from him and caving his chest. “This one. Sammy, it--” Sam’s fingers close around his left bicep, but Dean’s already lost in a zone. He glances around, but no one seems to notice. Sam keeps his grip on Dean while he looks into the display case. 

The rounded hair comb rests innocently on a maroon pillow. Petal shaped mother of pearl inlays decorate the handle. It looks as unassuming as everything else in the auction, but Dean was promptly overwhelmed by whatever he felt from it, so Sam doesn’t doubt it’s the item they’re looking for.

A couple family members wait on the fringes of the room talking to potential buyers. Sam tries to assess which one would be the best source of information when one walks up to them. Luther Yeon’s grandson Casey is a college student, and too busy making eyes at Dean to be bothered with grieving. He’s slight, black hair carefully slicked back with a couple artful strands falling to his forehead. “You don’t exactly look like the auctioning type,” he says to Dean, who blinks placidly back at him.

“Can you tell me the story of this comb?” Sam interrupts before Casey can notice Dean isn’t up to responding. His palm slides up to rest firmly on the nape of Dean’s When Casey tries to sidle into Dean’s space, narrowing lascivious dark eyes at him. Dean muscles untense one by one. Casey’s eyes flick up to Sam, glint a little with an assessing interest.

“You like ghost stories?” he smiles, glancing between them both like he can’t decide which dessert he wants to consume first.

“Love them.” Sam replies brusquely.

“Story goes that this comb was given to my great great grandfather before a voyage by a girl he loved. I can’t remember if he was coming to America or just going off to war or something.” he waves his hand absently. “They made a promise on the comb that they’ll reunite and get married. But when she got on a ship to follow him, her boat was lost at sea. When her restless spirit became a gwisin and followed my great great grandfather, she was heartbroken to find that he was already married to another woman. Now she haunts the comb, longing to fulfil their promise because she doesn’t want to be lonely in the afterlife.”

“If this comb is so entrenched in your family history, why would you want to sell it?” Sam frowns at the comb behind the glass, and wonders if Dean was able to feel all that rage, sadness, yearning, in a simple electromagnetic field. It seems ridiculous to speculate. 

“Aunty Dae’s superstitious as hell. She believes the story and refuses to even get near the comb. She says she saw the Gwisin once.”

“And she survived?” Sam presses. “What did it look like? Did it try to ask her something?”

Casey laughs charmingly. “Here, how about you ask her? She’s right over there.” He slides a card over the display case glass and winks at Sam. “When you’re done listening to ghost stories, give me a call.” Sam smiles tightly and pockets the card to be polite.

Dean walks haltingly where Sam leads him to Aunty Dae. Her face is as wrinkled and round and brown as a walnut. She assesses them both. “My condolences for your loss,” Sam says.

“Isn’t right to be selling a man’s things so quickly after he dies.” Aunty Dae harrumphs. “What are you interested in?”

“That haunted comb.” Sam answers without hesitation. He watches her breath hitch with real fear as she shakes her head. “If you tell me about it, I could take care of it for you.”

“Shouldn’t mess with spirits, boy.” Aunty Dae says gravely, shaking her head slowly. “Their energies can be harmful.” She runs milky old eyes over Dean. “That’s why this boy is unwell. He felt it, didn’t he?”

Sam, still bruised from the fight with the tea cup ghost, fingers still split from the cursed piano, thinks of telling her he knows about the harmfulness of spirits better than anyone. He thinks of telling her he’s more than equipped to handle it, but decides brushing off her well meaning warning would be rude. If Dean were conscious, he’d probably be able to charm her with flattery, the harmless kind of flirtation that makes little old ladies melt. But he’s vacant beside Sam, who can only look at her pleadingly and say, as earnestly as he can manage, “He and I, we know about this stuff. If you tell us what to do, we’ll get rid of the gwisin.” 

Aunty Dae studies them critically again. He imagines Dean's blank zoned out expression does little to inspire confidence, so Sam tries extra hard to look as trustworthy as possible. She snaps open the clasp of her handbag, and reaches in for a small stack of yellow squares of rice paper. “Take these.” She says, “and follow me.” She clambers to her feet slowly and shuffles over to the display case. She looks around shiftily and Sam looks around too, but everyone is either socialising or appraising the auction. Covertly, she slips a little key into the case’s lock, and palms the comb. 

When she gives it to Sam, her gnarled old fingers hold his firmly. The tines of the comb dig into the heel of his hand. She looks at him like she’s peering into his soul. “Use the talismans to bind the gwisin. Purify it with salt and fire. Be careful of her hair.” She pulls away, and toddles off, leaving Sam with a haunted comb and an armful of catatonic older brother. 

They make it to the car, and Sam pauses in corralling Dean just long enough to fold the comb into the talismans. He sets one talisman aside to tuck into Dad’s journal later. 

Dean comes out of his zone after another fifteen minutes, and slumps tiredly back against the seat, head lolling over the leather. “Fuck, I’m never doing that again,” He says sourly. “What happened after I was out?” Sam relays the story, laughs as he talks about Casey’s advances and Aunty Dae’s warnings. Dean hums tiredly, burnt out from his zone. 

They stop in a graveyard to burn the comb as Aunty Dae directed on the way out of town. The gwisin never stirs, pinned by the talismans. The purple smoke that rises from it tells them that it must have been effective. They watch it burn down to nothing.

“Dunno if that was worth it at all, Sammy,” Dean murmurs. He shoves his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunching. “Wasn’t all that effective, mixing this sentinel shit and hunting.”

“I think it went smoothly.” Sam answers with exaggerated confidence. “For a first time anyway.”

“I was a vegetable for most of it.” Dean rolls his eyes

Sam shrugs. “It was a 20 minute hunt. I think it actually broke a record for how fast it was resolved.” He lets Dean chew on that silently before he adds, “But I agree. We gotta plan it out better. This time, our ghost was handed right over to us. Next time, we might be breaking in to find something. God knows I can't wrangle you and a haunting and the cops all at the same time.”

The criticism seems to comfort Dean. He nods, leans even more heavily into the car. The fire from the comb has finally died out with one last puff of purple smoke. “She seemed pretty well prepared huh?” he jerks his thumb back at the surviving talismans.

“Maybe she thought she would take care of the comb herself before it could kill anybody else.” Sam answers. 

“Can you imagine still tangling with ghosts at a hundred?”

“God no. And I don’t think she could either. She clearly thought it was a young person's game, that's why she gave it to us.” Sam tosses a talisman at Dean. It flutters harmlessly. “She wasn’t that old.”

“Okay, hunting at ninety nine then.” he laughs brightly, echoing over the gravestones at Sam’s sharp unimpressed look. “If we make it that long.”

*

Sometimes, when Dean's feeling nostalgic, he’ll treat the old discoloured leather of Dad's old jacket. He rubs a leather ointment in, slow and patient, starting in one corner, up to one sleeve. He pays extra attention to the places where the jacket gets the most wear, the cuffs and the collar and the inner arms, where it's already pale from years of repetitive movement. The ointment smells chemical, sharp and stinging. Dean just breathes softly through his mouth. This smell, like gasoline, like whiskey, like smoke, is familiar and comforting. 

The afternoon eases by, languid and sultry. Sam is casually skimming through a book of Russian fairy tales left behind by a previous motel tenet in the bedside drawer. They have no where to be, and it's an unfamiliar comfort, like the smell of the leather ointment, even as it makes him sneeze. His belly is warm and full, a bottle of beer sweats in his palm. Sam closes his eyes, fights back the bubble of rage that is always waiting for him to enjoy the ease of the moment.

His eyes snap open when the phone rings. Dean flips it open. “Hello?” he grunts, folding the coat away neatly with the rest of his winter things.

“Dean.”

“Dad?”

Dean’s back straightens like Dad barked at him. Sam bolts upwards, scrambles over to Dean's bed to sit close, like he thinks he’ll be able to pull Dad through the phone into the room again.

“I got your call. So you're a sentinel now?”

“Yes sir.” Dean murmurs, shoulders slumping. Sam bites his lip, and neither of them tell Dad that call was forever ago, so many trials and cases and struggles ago. He couldn’t have called a moment sooner?

“Dad, where are you?” Sam pulls at Dean’s hand to move it from his mouth and shouts into the receiver.

“Got caught up in something. Got a couple new leads.” Sam wants to say that doesn’t answer the fucking question, but Dad’s already moved on. “Dean, even though you may be different, The job’s the same son.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees easily, like Dad’s read scripture to him. “Yeah it’s the same.”

“You look after your brother, son. I won't promise to call again but. If I can.” he doesn’t even say goodbye when he ends the call. Sam and Dean are left looking at the phone, listening to the dial tone, before the screen abruptly goes blank and it goes silent. Dean’s still sitting stiffly at attention beside him.

“So what do we do now?” Sam whispers.

“Same thing we been doing Sammy.” Dean whispers back. “The job’s still the same.”


End file.
